Buy Anything Wholesale Guide by Info-Publisher.com - HTML preview

PLEASE NOTE: This is an HTML preview only and some elements such as links or page numbers may be incorrect.
Download the book in PDF, ePub, Kindle for a complete version.

Advice

Now, before you go and contact all of these suppliers, there are some things you should know:

Getting creative and thinking outside the box:

If it can be bought, it can be sold for a profit . What ever you are looking to sell, you will find it if you look hard enough. What I want you to know is that not every product can be found in a conventional way. By conventional I mean, looking up a supplier in the yellow pages or the internet. Sometimes you just have to get creative.

First you must get rid of all the mental blocks and limitations that are in your mind. You need a can-do-attitude. More often than not, the spoils come to those who think the sky is the limit. Thinking outside the box is just that. The limitations and mental blocks are “the box”…you must completely ignore them!

So what do I mean by thinking outside the box while looking for a supplier? I mean, your supplier doesn’t have to be an actual supplier… your supplier can be a store, website or even another eBay seller that has access to the products you want to sell. Another eBay seller!? Why would the competition want to help me? Well, not everyone is going to want to help. But the smart eBay sellers know that this is a chance to make money off of the competition as well as their own eBay business. A smart seller knows that with the extra products he/she orders to supply you, he/she will probably get a greater discount.

eBay is a great opportunity to make money from home, with little or no risk and a small amount of startup money. But guess what, not every real supplier is going to want to deal with you when your first order is only $100 worth of products. You must understand, if you can’t go in through the front door, just go around and try the back. As you read on, there will be examples of getting the products you want to sell through the “back door”.

Does anyone actually use this “back door method”? Yes! Almost every single eCommerce website that sells expensive watches (TAG, ROLEX, OMEGA…) uses the “back door method”, because the manufactures of the watches only supply directly from the factory and only to authorized dealers….Oh and the watch companies forbid the selling of their watches over the internet. So what most of these websites and eBay power sellers do is befriend a jewelry store that has access to the products they want to sell. So if some of the biggest most successful power sellers and websites do it, why can’t you?
Most people are uncomfortable thinking outside the box and taking the road less traveled. Because when you do what everyone else does, there is a clear path, there are guidelines and it is much easier and less uncomfortable to follow an already made path than make your own. Please know that you don’t have to follow “the rules” when looking for a supplier. Anyone that sells what you want to sell is a potential supplier to you.

Now, not everyone is going to agree to do business with you. But you must remember, there are thousands of people out there that would agree to be your supplier, the sooner you get rid of the ones that don’t want anything to do with you the sooner you will get to the ones that want your business and are open to your ideas.

If you are a self motivated person with a can-do-attitude and lots of energy, you won’t have too many problems. If you are a lazy, shy person you may need some help. I am not a persuasion expert nor do I claim to be one. There is a book out there that can help you, it is full of great advice on persuasion and if you are one of those people that needs some help, get this book! It’s called “How To Win Friends And Influence People” by Dale Carnegie. There are no books out there about “back door” suppliers… maybe I will write one in the future, but for now the Hot eBay Sources book is absolutely, positively all you need!

MAKE MONEY WHEN YOU BUY. This is HUGE! I hear many people tossing the term around carelessly, not really knowing what it means. First of all, you can’t make money if you are buying something for your own personal use, you can only save money. You can only make money when you buy, if you are buying something for the purpose of reselling it. So, how is it that someone can make money when buying something?

Let’s say you are about to buy 100 sweaters from a supplier, $10 per sweater, which equals to $1,000 for 100 sweaters.

 

Let’s say the sweaters can be sold on eBay for $15 each, it would look something like this:

Bought for $1,000 Sold for $1,500 Profit $500

Now let’s make some money when we buy! Before buying the 100 sweaters for $1,000, why don’t you try and get the price down a little, maybe to $9 per sweater. It will only take a few minutes, sometimes just asking will be enough and sometimes you might need to haggle for a half hour.
Anyways, let’s say you succeed in getting a better deal, you buy the hundred sweaters for $9 each and sell them for $15 each:

Bought for $900 Sold for $1500 Profit $600
Look at that, you made $100 dollars extra in profit just because you decided to make some money when you buy as well as when you sell. What? It’s too much bother? You don’t want to spend half an hour trying to get $1 off every shirt? If you are actually saying those words, what you are really saying is, it’s too much bother to make $100 in a half hour. “I don’t want to make $100 in a half hour.”

Making money when you buy is a way to increase your profits without raising your prices. Why everyone doesn’t do this is a mystery to me. In the example I provided, you learned how you can make $100 when buying a wholesale lot. If you are planning to be a power seller, you will be making a lot more than a $100.

If you are a power seller, you may be selling 500 sweaters per month. In the previous example, you were able to make an extra $100 of profit for 100 sweaters sold. If you sell 500 sweaters per month, which means you will be making an extra $500 per month just because you haggled for a half hour, an extra $500 per month, $6,000 per year….all in a half hour….don’t you think it’s worth it?

Buying below wholesale. The less you pay for the products you sell, the more money you will be able to make. That’s what making money when you buy is all about.

Besides haggling with your supplier in order to make more money, you should also look for a supplier that provides you with the lowest prices possible. It sounds obvious, but let me explain:

If you sell new products, there is a concrete price set that you can buy them at from the supplier, and you usually can’t go below that price. New products are the most expensive kind of products and are sometimes the least profitable to sell.

What you need to look for are products that are practically new, but not quite.

Surplus, liquidation, overstock, refurbished and closeout products are the most profitable kind of products you can sell. Why? Because more often than not, the only difference between these products and brand new ones is the length of the warranty they come with, but when it comes to the prices at which these products can be bought at, the difference is huge!

Products from overstock lots can be purchased for as low as 80% below wholesale! That is not always the case, but it’s not unheard of to get those kinds of discounts!

 

The truly amazing thing about buying something that costs a fraction of the wholesale price is when it sells for close to retail price!

And that is what can happen on eBay. A refurbished or overstock product will often sell for the same price as brand new one. Now here as an example of what that can mean to you:
Let’s say you are selling a brand new video camera that you bough at a wholesale price. The retail price of the camera is $1,000, and you have bought it for $500. When you post your camera up for auction it ends up selling for $720:

Bought for $500 Sold for $750 Profit = $250

That’s great! You have just made $250 dollars. Now let’s see what would happen if you had found a better deal instead and bought the same camera from a liquidator:

Let’s say you were able to buy the same camera for 50% below wholesale, that would mean that the camera cost you $250. When you posted the camera up for auction it sold for $100 less than the new camera:

Bought for $250 Sold for $650 Profit = $400

Now that’s WOW! Even though the refurbished or overstock camera sold for $100 less, it still made $150 more in profit than the new one!

So why would people spend almost as much on a refurbished or overstock product as they would on a new one? Because usually, the only difference between them is the length of the warranty they come with.

Refurbished and overstock products come with boxes, warranties and even a new smell just like new products. To the bidders, the differences between refurbished and new products are almost non existent. But to you the difference is a couple of hundred dollars in profit!

Go to http:// www.refurbdepot.com – and check out the insanely low prices. Don’t these prices look like wholesale prices to you? Yes they do, but what you must realize is that the people that are selling these products paid a lot less than wholesale for them, so even though they are selling their products at extremely cheap prices, they still make big profits on each sale.

So where can you get products at such cheap prices? Go to http:// www.surplus.net and browse around. You will be able to find some “hot” items for extremely low prices. And if you can’t afford some of the minimum order quantities, keep reading and you will learn about two things called OPM and OPP.

Note: there is more information on refurbished products later on in this book.

ALWAYS ORDER SAMPLES

If you don’t have a chance to inspect and see the products you are ordering in person, always order a sample. Many people that are starting out on eBay make the mistake of placing a big order before actually seeing what they are ordering.

By ordering samples you will be able to not only see the quality of the products you are ordering but the service, communication and legitimacy of the company you are ordering from.

There are way too many scammers out there, especially on the Internet. Some websites may have clear pictures of the products they are selling, but don’t make the mistake of assuming that the pictures on their website are actual pictures of the products you are ordering.

If you are thinking of selling designer clothing on eBay, be extra careful when ordering your supplies from the Internet. There is way too much fake (counterfeit) clothing being sold on the Internet. Remember, the pictures on the supplier’s website may look real, but that doesn’t mean they will be sending you what’s in the picture.

Order samples! If you don’t, you are begging to get ripped off. If the person you are buying from won’t allow you to order a sample, simply stop communicating with that person before they have the chance to take advantage of you. Some “suppliers” actually have the nerve to have $5,000 - $10,000 minimum order quantities and not allow their future costumers to order samples. But that’s not all, a lot of these idiots will also want you to pay by wire-transfer!

So please, if you find a great deal but the “supplier” won’t allow any sample orders and wants you to pay through an untraceable method, do NOT continue to communicate with the idiot. People like that are simply looking to rip others off and a lot of these sorry losers have their local authorities looking for them.

Something to think about if you don’t have any money to start with:

OPM and OPP: I understand that even though you may want to start selling on eBay, Yahoo, Amazon or open your own Internet store you might not have any money to start with. After all most suppliers have large minimum orders and don’t look after the little guy’s interests.

Well, fortunately for you, there is a way for you to start with virtually no money to invest in your business or any products to sell.

You may not have any money, but other people do. Isn’t that right? Banks have money, credit card companies have money, and lone sharks have money. But you already knew that, and maybe you have already tried to borrow money but for one reason or another (bad credit, you already owe everyone, etc.) you were not able to let anyone lend you money. But the fact remains, other people still have money.

How can you get these people’s money? You can sell them something! Oh yeah, I forgot, you have nothing to sell either. But don’t other people have stuff to sell?

So, in order to get your hands on some money, you need to sell someone something, but in order to sell something you need to have something to sell. But, you don’t have anything to sell, and in order to get your hands on something to sell you need money which you don’t have.

This is your answer:

 

OPM Other People’s Money

 

OPPOther People’s Products

 

What you can do is use other people’s money to sell other peoples products.

 

How?

 

By listing something you don’t own up for auction, collecting the money (OPM) paying for what you just sold (OPP) with that money and keeping the difference for yourself.

 

All you have to do is look in a newspaper, find something for sale, call up the owner and say you will buy it in one week….guaranteed!

 

Than post the item up for auction, and wait until it sells.

 

Collect the payment.

 

Go to the owner of what you just sold.

 

Haggle over the price a little bit.

 

Pay the owner for the item.

 

Keep the money that is left over (profit)

 

And send your costumer the product they paid for.

 

There you go! Did you use any of your own money? No. Did you sell anything that you owned? No! All you did was put OPM and OPP together and kept the profit for yourself!

How much money can you make? Depends on the product you sell. If you sell a pair of used shoes you might make 5 bucks, if you sell a Rolex watch you can make over $1,000! It all depends on what you sell.

This is similar to drop shipping, except with OPM And OPP you have to ship the products yourself.

The BIG “secret” about “drop shippers”

Before you go searching for the “drop shipper” of your dreams, there is something you absolutely must know.

A real “Drop Shipper” is simply a wholesale supplier that can provide you with drop shipping. In other words, drop shipping is simply a service wholesale suppliers can provide to their clients…not a whole new type of supplier.

So why is that so important? Two reasons:

1. Instead of looking for “drop shippers” people should look for a good wholesale supplier and simply ask them to drop ship their products. That is why it can be so hard for most people to find a reliable supplier that will drop ship their orders, it is because most people look for “drop shippers” not wholesalers.

2. There are online companies out there that call themselves “drop shippers”. These so called “drop shippers” are nothing but middle men, who simply take your orders and forward them to their wholesale supplier who then ships your products. Meanwhile you are charged with a “drop shipping fee”.

So when you search for a “drop shipper” you usually won’t come across anything good, because most of the time all you will get is a bunch of middle men.

 

So, how do you find a supplier that will provide me with drop shipping?

 

It is really quite simple, all you have to do is find a regular wholesale supplier and ask them to drop ship your orders.

Getting around minimum order quantities:

I am sure you already know that many suppliers and manufacturers have a minimum order quantity. This can be a big problem to most people that are just starting out in eBay. Most people can’t afford the minimum order quantity set by the suppliers, and this is the time most people usually give up their dream of becoming a successful eBay seller.

Well guess what, there is an easy way to get around the problem of big MOQ’s, and it works! This method is not something that is very often talked about, but a lot of eBay power sellers used this exact method to start up their now enormously successful businesses.

In order to be able to use this method to its full potential you must understand that people are humans, not machines. And humans can be easily persuaded into doing what you want them to do.

Let’s say you are extremely thirsty, so you walk into a convenient store and decide to buy a drink. You put the drink you want on the counter, reach into your pocket and realize that you are 5 cents short. Can you convince the person at the cash register to make an exception? Yes, of course. More often than not all you will have to do is ask.

Now, let’s say you are extremely thirsty, so you walk up to a vending machine, reach into your pocket and realize you are 5 cents short. Can you convince the vending machine to make an exception? No way, you can plead with it all day and it won’t even listen to you. You couldn’t convince it even if you had a gun!

Something else you absolutely must know is exactly who you’re dealing with. Are you dealing with the owner of the wholesale company? No, most likely not. You are probably dealing with a sales representative or a manager. This is very important because sales representatives and managers usually don’t have big fat salaries and are a lot easier to convince than a highly paid president or rich owner.

So what exactly is this method for getting around MOQ’s? Well it’s quite simple, you need to make “helping you” something that is in the best interest of the person you are dealing with. If you are simply going to go into the sales manager’s office and say “c’mon, let me buy less than required….c’Mon, it would make me a lot of money”, if you say stuff like that, you wont get anywhere. You need to say things that are in the person’s best interest, not yours.

So what is it that you should offer the person that has the power to help you become successful? Offer them a part of your profits.

What has worked for me in the past and many power sellers I have talked to is, offering the person you are dealing with a commission for every product you sell. This is a very attractive offer and most people will not be able to turn it down. That is of course if you present it properly. Here is an example:

Let’s say that the product you want to sell is a highly profitable one: luxury car wheels. What you need to do before you meet the supplier (sales manager) is work out how many wheels a month you are going to sell, how much profit you will make per every sale and how much money you will be making per month. With the car wheels you want to sell you can expect to make a profit of $500 per sale and maybe even higher.

So you work out the profit you will make per every sale ($500), now you need to figure out how many car wheels you will be able to sell per month, let’s say around 30. That gives you a monthly income of $15,000/ month (30 sales multiplied by $500 = $15,000).

After you’ve figured out your projected profit/sale and income/month, you need to decide how much of that money you are willing to pay to the person (sales manager) that is going to make it all happen for you. I usually give 20%, and so do other sellers, and so should you. What does 20% mean to the sales manage? It means $100 for every set of wheels you sell, if you meet your goal of 30 sales/month this will mean a $3,000 monthly commission for the sales manager. Now, tell me, if you were offered a $3,000 passive monthly income, would you turn it down?

An eBay power seller I have interviewed told me that the best way to preset this proposal is in a friendly and comfortable environment, something like a café or bar. The reason for this is because an unfamiliar office can be an intimidating environment. You need to be somewhere comfortable, this will make both you and the sales manager a lot more open and friendly.

You should also type up the offer and print it out, stuff it in an envelope and leave it with the sales manager after your meeting is over. This is a powerful trick, because when the sales manager opens the envelope and looks at everything you have just proposed to him, all broken down and calculated, it will be hard for him not to see it your way.

When you type up this offer make sure to clearly break down all of the numbers you mentioned. The typed up offer should not include a lot of text, just a break down of the money the sales manager would be making if everything goes as planned. Example:

Estimated profit per/ sale: $500

 

Estimated monthly sales goal: 30 sales

 

Commission: 20% or $100 per sale, $3,000 per month

You can also include an explanation of how you came up with those numbers. Now I know that this may sound a little fishy and unethical, but nothing could be further from the truth. If you do something like this, it will be a win-win situation for everyone: you will be making money, the sales manager will be making money and the wholesale company would not only be making money but also gaining a long term business partner (you) that is a true asset to the company.

Multi million dollar deals are made every day using these kinds of “fishy” methods, and almost every business and successful corporation that ever existed was once involved in under the table deals when it was still in its infancy. You will not breaking any laws or be hurting anyone by conducting this type of business. Oh and as for that minimum order that you couldn’t afford, if you stick to your plans and meet your goals you will be buying a lot more than the minimum order required, every single month. Like I said, its win-win for everyone, because you’re making money, the manager is making money and the wholesale company is not only making money, it’s gaining a valuable asset (you).

Like I said before, this is something not a lot of eBay power sellers’ talk about but a lot of them do. It is important to know that you don’t have to keep paying the sales manager a 20% commission forever. You can stop as soon as you make enough money to be able to afford the MOQ. This is something that only has to be done in the beginning (if you have no start up money) and is done by countless amounts of new businesses every day.

My personal motto is: “If I can’t use the rules to my advantage, those rules don’t apply to me.” A lot of successful people seem to agree with me, because this method of getting what you want is exactly what “playing by your own rules” is all about. You have played by someone else’s set of rules all of your life: your parents’ rules, your school’s rules, your bosses rules. It’s time to follow your own rules and follow in the footsteps of millions of successful people that did it before you.

Think outside the box, strive to achieve your goals and play by your own rules. In other words: think for yourself.

Note: you don’t have to use this method in person for it to work, but it works best when you actually do meet the person and talk to them face to face. If the supplier you have found is in another country you can always talk over the phone and send the “break down” of the numbers by email.

“Back-door” suppliers:

Not everything you want to sell can be found by simply searching for it on one of the websites I have given you. This is because the manufacturers of some products chose to sell only to a certain kind of buyer. A good example would be luxury brand watch manufacturers (Omega, Rolex, Tag etc.). There are no wholesalers of expensive watches because the watch companies supply stores that sell their watches directly from the factory. There are no warehouses full of Rolex watches that are open to anyone that can afford a watch.

In fact, most watch companies allow only authorized dealers to sell their watches and prohibit their products to be sold on the Internet. This is done to keep the exclusivity and prestige of the watch company and to protect costumers against fakes.

So how do eBay sellers and internet stores get their hands on these hard to find watches? They get them from authorized dealers.

You see, most watch companies require their authorized dealers to order a certain amount of watches per month (usually a lot), a lot of the smaller watch stores can’t afford the minimum orders that the watch companies require, but even though they can’t afford the minimum orders they still want to sell the expensive watches and keep their dealer licenses.

What eBay sellers do is, offer to split the cost of the minimum order that the authorized dealer can’t afford. This way the dealer is happy because he can keep his dealer license and continue selling the highly profitable watches, and the eBay seller is happy because he now has a supplier of brand new watches that are extremely hard to come by and sell very well.

Why is all of this relevant to finding a supplier? Because if you want to sell Rolex watches, or expensive hand bags or any other exclusive items, you won’t always be able to find a supplier on the Internet. You will need to find someone that already sells what you want to sell and try to get it through them.

Note: when trying to convince someone to do something, don’t talk about what you want, talk about what’s in it for the other person. Talk about the extra money they would be making if they help you and other things that are of interest to the person you are trying to convince.

Like I said before, if it can be bought it can be sold for a profit. And the more exclusive and expensive products out there can earn you a lot of profit.

Money made per transaction:

The more money you make per every transaction the less time and effort it will take you to make the money you want to make. It is so simple it is beautiful and so obvious it is often overlooked. Most sellers know this, but they don’t understand the significance and importance of “money made per transaction.”

I believe, it is not enough to simply know something, you must understand what it is that you know, and that is why I like to explain everything. It is so you understand how important and useful the information I give you really is.

It is simple: to make lots of money in a short period of time, you need to make as much profit in dollar amount as possible from every single sale (transaction) you make. And the obvious way to do this is by selling high ticket items, items that make you hundreds of dollars in profit per sale. If you want to make $1,000, what do you think will take less time: selling 100 products that make you $10 in profit per sale, or 5 products that make $200 in profit per sale?

I’m sure you know the answer, but I will give another example. Lets say that it takes you 1 hour to make 1 transaction (list, accept payment, email costumer, pack and ship). Now let’s say that you want to make $10,000. You can either make it by selling products that make you $50 per sale or you can sell products that make you $300 per sale. Let’s compare how long it would take you to reach your goal of $10,000 if every transaction you make takes 1 hour to complete:

To reach $10,000 by selling products that make you $50 per sale, it would take a total of 200 transactions. To make 200 transactions it would take you a total of 200 hours to make $10,000;

$10,000 / $50 = 200 transactions, 200 transactions x 1 hour = 200 hours

 

Now let’s compare that to selling products that make $300 per sale;

To reach $10,000 by selling products that make you $300 per sale, it would take a total of 33.3 transactions, to make 33.3 transactions it would take you a total of 33.3 hours to make $10,000:

$10,000 / $300 = 33.3 transactions, 33.3 transactions x 1 hour = 33.3

You may also like...