Where do you source products to resell?

[booksnstuff_8]

I want to sell from home, but where do I get bulk wholesale products from? I’m not talking about estate sales.

[onefootflippers]

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@booksnstuff_8 wrote:

I want to sell from home, but where do I get bulk wholesale products from? I’m not talking about estate sales.

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Ordering wholesale and reselling from home doesn't really work because anyone can do it, if anyone can do it price pressure will force the prices to almost zero profit. Also, very likely someone else will have a better deal with the distributor or be local to them and be able to sell profitably at a price you would lose money on.

You will find the majority of people in these forums either seek out unique deals or have brick and mortar operations of which the ebay is a sideline. A lot of distributors will not even consider selling to you if you are not a brick and mortar.

[lonebuck-books]

Not trying to be mean but you are asking something that a lot of sellers have spent a lot of time learning, fostering relationships, and creating trust with.  Very few sellers are willing to give that information out to what in the end, is their competition.  I doubt you will get any answers to your question other than the occasional rabbit trail "source".  

[sumsum70]

Hang out in bars and late-night joints around ports and railyards on the west coast. You'll get some good opportunities if you have cash and nobody thinks you're a cop.

[ckimodog]

@booksnstuff_8 

You can always google it.  You might be surprised what you can find.

Good luck to you!

[niftyfindsinphoenix]

If you own a business such as a store more doors will be open to you. however, you have to commit or not. it's not for everyone. but if you feel up for it go ahead. but it's a journey there will be ups and downs believe me.

[fashunu4eeuh]

Hi @booksnstuff_8 welcome back!

A good starting point is eBay itself. Some sellers look for deals on listed items they can readily flip.

Like some other posters mentioned, I am afraid very few fellow sellers will divulge wholesaling business information, and just give away their competitive edge by sharing sources. But no harm in asking.

I see you have some old feedback as a seller. So you are not really a newbie, you’ve just not sold on this account in a few years. Are you aware of eBay’s new payment processor program called Managed Payments? PayPal no longer does that service on behalf of eBay.

There’s been a lot of policy changes since you were last selling here. You will want to bone up on the rules.

If i may offer a little unsolicited advice—It is helpful to sell what you know. For example, i sometimes sell vintage fashion. My retail background and areas of study at university supports this endeavor. So i know the proper terminology, the designer market, marketing strategies for clothes, etc.

It is hard enough to do online sales without burdening oneself by hawking items they know little about. Wish you much success!!

[dbfolks166mt]

     A lot of online auctions and auction houses. 

[ethylsgarage]

I buy inventory from older sellers in my areas of expertise who want to retire. My last purchase was three semi trailers full of automotive service manuals (99,000 lbs on 57 pallets.)

[sin-n-dex]

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@ethylsgarage wrote:

I buy inventory from older sellers in my areas of expertise who want to retire. My last purchase was three semi trailers full of automotive service manuals (99,000 lbs on 57 pallets.)

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My current auctions are being run because a dealer in Ontario passed away and his family sold off his inventory. They were looking to liquidate, and it came with all sorts of neat things (that were not related to coins and stamps). I took whatever would not take up much room that I could sell quickly for profit. I passed on anything that would break even. (My business partner took the rest of what I passed on so the whole inventory was sold to us from this one guy's shop).

C.

[ajs_coins_and_alchemy]

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@booksnstuff_8 wrote:

I want to sell from home, but where do I get bulk wholesale products from? I’m not talking about estate sales.

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EBAY

[ajs_coins_and_alchemy]

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@fashunu4eeuh wrote:

Hi @booksnstuff_8 welcome back!

A good starting point is eBay itself. Some sellers look for deals on listed items they can readily flip.

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^^^ My entire business ... and it pretty much supports me full time, I'm not going to become a millionaire, but I'm not suffering ^^^ 

[simba6]

You have to watch out. To get true whole sale prices you often have to buy 5000.00 or more of a single item. You could be stuck with oodles of it unsold.   Most places that offer whole sale like drop shippers, don't have true whole sale prices.  Worse yet, they often don't have merchandise that sells well.  Estate sales can have some very good buys.

[sin-n-dex]

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@simba6 wrote:

You have to watch out. To get true whole sale prices you often have to buy 5000.00 or more of a single item. You could be stuck with oodles of it unsold.   Most places that offer whole sale like drop shippers, don't have true whole sale prices.  Worse yet, they often don't have merchandise that sells well.  Estate sales can have some very good buys.

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I have a friend that keeps learning the hard way about ordering too much stuff...

He did a calendar in 2013, and ordered 1000 because they were only $3 each (but would cost a bit more for a smaller quantity). He sold 10 to friends, and I bought one to show my support for his business venture, then 2014 came and he still had 990 calendars unsold. That was almost 3K wasted.

In 2015 he tried the calendar thing again, but only ordered 750 of them thinking 1000 was too many and the price difference wasn't enough to warrant getting more. I think this time he sold only 5 calendars (I didn't buy one and didn't know about them until years later, he didn't want me to say "I told you so").

Then with the London Olympics he made a specialized acrylic coin holder for the set of 50 pence. This is a good idea, but after buying 100 of them for $21 each, he discovered they were impossible to ship cheaply and properly. I was getting into eBay then and he wanted me to list a few to see if I could sell them (at this point he was willing to take a big loss). I couldn't find a way to ship them safely. It needs a special sized box. Also people who would want such a thing might be mostly in the UK, so getting something to the UK won't be cheap at that weight and size.

One thing I discovered when sourcing stuff from the coin shop is that certain products attract certain markets, and if you can't effectively ship your wares to the market that wants to buy your product, you're going to have a lot of unsold product. My latest venture was some Scotland Masonic tokens and I needed to figure out a way to ship them to the UK without charging the moon for shipping. Probably 90% of them have sold to buyers in Scotland (being they are from Scotland and all that). That was something to overcome if I wanted to make sales.

Anyway just sharing this tale of success and failure to help anyone who has an idea to source a very large number of something without knowing if there's a market. This is why some places take preorders on product they don't have in stock.

C.

[wastingtime101]

Wherever/however you source @booksnstuff_8 : keep all receipts and start with excellent bookkeeping. Do not play catch up on bookkeeping later - it's a lot more work. Do not get caught without receipts if eBay asks you to provide proof of purchase for a new seller account review. Good luck.