The Wholesale Forums

[Dave Berriman]

In this post I am going to talk about a little tip I discovered some time ago, which is probably the easiest way to get started selling online and making a profit.

This process involves buying from eBay .com and selling in our very own eBay .co.uk , I have been using this system successfully for quite some time now and some products I have bought for $15 in the states have been selling for £50 in the UK, which equates to around £35 profit per item once you have taken into account the shipping.

Now let's look at where you need to start, importing from the USA is quite popular at the moment especially with the great exchange rates we are getting, but we first need to find a product that sells well in the UK on eBay which we can buy in the US for less money, the way we are going to do this is to search eBay's completed listings.

To do this simply enter a search term into eBay's search box and when the results show up go down the left hand side of the screen and click completed listings box ad then click show items, this will bring up the listings that have ended, the sold items are shown in green and the unsold items are shown in red.

Now once we know how to use completed listings we simply look at eBay.co.uk completed listings and find items that are selling and then check on eBay.com completed listings and see how much you can buy them for in the states.

We keep looking until we find a product which we can make a decent mark up on and then we contact the sellers of these products on eBay.com and find out if they are willing to ship to the UK as well as how much discount they will give for buying in small bulk quantities.

Once you have established a relationship with a US supplier stick with him and as you sell more products you should be able to negotiate better discounts.

Keep the product running on eBay until your sales start to fall away and then repeat the process again and find another product.

[willhof]

What you've got to remember is the majority of American eBayers will not ship to the Uk.

Good read though. Thanks

[hardwareheroes]

Yes, Dave - have to agree with willhof - getting decent suppliers to ship to you will limit your prospects. Nonetheless, a good, basic idea.

[Dave Berriman]

When I originally set away doing this method I did hit a snag, it wasn't that the suppliers wouldn't ship to me (I contacted 4 suppliers for the first product and 3 of them were willing to send to the UK) , the snag that I hit was the guys selling in the US didn't have enough stock to keep me going.

I went to the manufacturer of this particular product and asked if they could supply me but the insisted that I went through their wholesalers in the UK.

I contacted the suppliers in the UK and was shocked that for me to buy 1000 of these units it was going to cost me £70 each!!!

The exact same product could be had in the states for $15.... I then went to wholesalers in the states but they weren't permitted to sell UK customers.

I had to think a little different and got in touch with an old contact I met through an internet marketing forum, the guy went on to buy these products on my behalf and forward the goods onto myself (for a small commision of course).

Even after that first product I have never had any real bother finding suppliers on eBay.com who will sell to me and ship overseas, but have never bought any electrical (different voltage) or breakable goods with this mehod, I can imagine that suppliers would be a little more reluctant to send this type of product overseas.

[AALG_Andy]

Thanks for sharing Dave, great thinking.

Andy

[dynamic]

Very helpful

[Pete]

title may be a bit misleading. None of this business is "easy."
.

[nocturnal]

Good info but remember you may have to include import taxes VAT etc when bringing into the UK also why not take it a step further and try and find the seller's source?

[hardwareheroes]

Originally Posted by nocturnal

Good info but remember you may have to include import taxes VAT etc when bringing into the UK also why not take it a step further and try and find the seller's source?

I think the point is that the sources won't supply to the OP because of international boundary agreements hence the need to go through ebay sellers

[Dave Berriman]

I did goto the manufacturer and ask them to supply me but as hardwareheroes mentions they wouldn't deal with me and said I had to purchase off one of the UK distributers due to international boundry agreements.

I even asked if I could become a UK distributer for them and they told me I had to go on a waiting list!

Anyway this worked out pretty well in the end.