Oct 19

How to sell wholesale without having any stock or capital?

Posted in: Business, Inspiring you, Money, Online scams, money making ideas

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Many people love to run a business but simply give up the idea due to capital formation problems. But there are few ways to get around this problem. Ever heard of Drop shipping? If not, it is high time you start learning it.

I found about drop shipping when I ordered a wristwatch from ebay. The seller was from USA but my parcel arrived from Hong Kong. I was curious enough to do a little research on this and I found out that most of the ebay power sellers are actually drop shippers. And they are cashing in millions thanks to this concept. Good thing is, there is no rocket science here. An average guy like you and me can very easily get in to the system and raking it in.

What’s the story here ?

If done correctly wholesale drop shipping can be a very luxurious business opportunity. What happens here is, when some one orders something from you; you contact the whole seller and give the order to him. The customer pays money to you and your seller directly ship goods to your customer. You pay the wholesale price to your seller. The difference in these prices is your profit.

This way, you do not need to have any physical stock with you. Remember, you can do this both off line and online. But if you are planning to do this off line you need to purchase samples in order to show to your potential customers. Drop shipping solves one of our biggest problem of finding capital.

Beware of scams.

Although this business sounds very luxurious, this is possible only if you have a good whole seller who is willing to do drop shipping for you. If you are planning to do this online you must make sure that your seller is not a con artist. To tell you the truth 90% of the online whole sellers do not have any stock with them. So you must select your sellers carefully.

Many people are selling drop shippers lists these days. Do not buy them. If I have a good whole seller I can make more than enough money from him not to sell out his details. I would rather keep his details to my self. These lists gives names of companies which drop ships and many of them could be the same company in different names or just an individual with a phone without any actual product with them.

If you find your seller online, it is always better to visit him. Or have someone check on them. There are lot of firms which does back ground checks on other companies for a small fee. I know this can be costly. But by doing this, you can start your marketing activities without any doubts.

If your seller scams you, eventually you will become a scammer from your customer’s perspective. And that is not pretty. That is why I insist you to chose your sellers carefully. ( Do not worry, There are plenty of good whole sellers. Otherwise there won’t be an ebay.)

How to find a whole seller for you to drop ship?

You can find many good whole sellers who are not new to drop shipping at alibaba and at worldwidebrands. Read this article to figure out how to not get scammed by whole sellers.

One of the best ways to find out whole sellers is to do a search off line. If you can approach them and present your idea, there is a high chance that they will agree to do the dirty work for you. After all, it brings more sales to them.

However it may not be easy as finding a whole seller online, but it has more benefits and it is much more secure.

What you should sell in order to cash in ?

If you are planning to make a fortune from drop shipping keep this simple factor in your mind. Sell high end niche products with a profit margin that leaves you plenty of room to advertise! This way you do not have to worry about advertising cost. ( PPC is the best. ) If you are selling a product for $15 and it costs you $5 to get a customer, there is not much in it.

But if you are selling something for $400 and your profit margin is $100 then there is plenty of room for you to advertise. Even if you spend $25 to get that new customer, so what, you’ve still made $70.00!

Go high end niche and cash in. After all, you’re drop shipping and there is no need to carry any inventory, so go for the gold! Plasma TV’s , LCD’s, snowboards, high end phones are few examples that comes to my mind.

Let’s make some money.

Now you have a very clear understanding about how drop shipping works. Now the matter is getting customers for you to sell your products. You can proceed with the traditional way of making a web site and driving traffic through PPC. It will work; there is no doubt about it. But there are much easier ways of doing this.

You can practice this method on world’s largest online market place, “ebay”. As I said earlier, most of the ebay power sellers are actually drop shippers.

I have run few successful campaigns with ebay and drop shipped N95’s when the market was big for Nokia N95. This was back in June- September last year. I had a supplier in Singapore who supplied N 95’s @ $580 for me. Back then the retail price on ebay was $ 700-$850.

The above image you see is a picture I used in my ebay listings. I had few phones with me as samples because most buyers need some photo proof before placing an order.

I had a nice run till they introduced the N95 8GB. My supplier could not extend his deal with Nokia and our relationship ended unfortunately.

And the other great place to sell your products is “alibaba.com”. I love their market place. When you post a sales lead it is almost guaranteed that you will have at least few inquires within the few hours. And you can always reply to buyer leads and find new customers. They have a great system and the house where I am living at the moment was bought from the money I earned from alibaba.

Ebay gives you one sale at a time. Alibaba gives you $10,000 worth sales at a time. I was drop shipping Nokia N95’s and E90’s to Australia, Germany, USA, UAE and UK. And 50% of my assets in fixed deposits also come from alibaba sales.

Do your self a favor and join this great market place. It is totally Free to join and to do business. Once you are a member, download the “trade manager”. It is a chatting software like msn messenger but the difference is all your contacts are wholesale buyers and sellers.

Build your profile with correct information and post few sales leads with accurate and complete details. If you do everything right you can expect buyers to contact you within few hours. And remember, you can use the same method to find suppliers for you too.

I have given all the information you need without holding anything back. If I have not revealed anything here, that would be my current supplier’s details for gaming consoles. And I am not going to trade that information for anything.

I hope you would appreciate my effort of writing this post. You can share your thoughts in the comments section and if you like the post please give it a thumbs up. That is the best thing I am expecting from you.

Do not forget to read,
How to not get scammed from alibaba sellers.
This is too much work for you? The easy money is at Forex.

Aug 14

How to Not Get Scammed on Alibaba or from other Online wholesalers.

Posted in: Business, Online scams

If you are a businessperson and if you have not heard of “alibaba” you are definitely missing something.

Actually you are missing a whole lot. It is the world’s largest business to business marketplace and it is an opportunity you cannot miss.

And whether you believe it or not most of the eBay profitable businesses are depending on alibaba on their supply needs. This is the main reason why eBay power sellers are able to provide you goods for unbelievable prices.

As with anything of this nature, alibaba has become a scammer’s paradise recently.

But when you use alibaba with caution, nothing else can beat the opportunities available for you to make money in this huge market place. Are you satisfied with your $300 a month online income?

The least amount of profit I made through a single deal through alibaba is $800. And the highest profit I made in a single deal so far is recorded at $5500. True, you will not make deals everyday. In my case the last deal I made was in July 6th 2008. Only working 3 days a week is not helping my cause and as much as I love this blog I cannot repair the damage it is doing to my bank account these days. (20% drop in my sales figures both online and offline) Oh, and before going any further I must tell you that all my deals with alibaba is in drop shipping nature. Google the term if you do not know what drop shipping is?

If you want to take a real advantage of this, you must eliminate all the risks of you getting scammed. As I said earlier, with its shot to fame, alibaba has become a real scammer’s paradise. I don’t think this blog is the place to teach you a-z in international trade. There are enough resources available online for your reference. What I can do is giving you few guidelines on the usage of alibaba compiled through my own experience. Here we go,

Top 10 things you should know when using alibaba. The list is in a random order.

dont buy electronics from alibaba
The $300 Nokia E90 they are selling is a cheap knock off. And the $20 ipod they are selling is nothing more than a cheap mp3 player. In most countries the consignment will not even pass the custom clearing due to copy right infringement laws. Not only you will lose your money, but there is a high chance of you have to spend few years proving your innocence in courts.

Never use western union to send money to alibaba suppliers
Most of the alibaba suppliers will ask you to send money through western union. What ever the reason they give, you never do that. Once you send money through western union you have no control over it. It is very easy to scam people using western union. Early days I have been a victim of a $2000 fraud through western union. I do not want you to lose your hard earned money. When you see western union as the only payment method listed, do your self a favor and run away from that supplier.

Never fall in to fake sample images from alibaba sellers.

The scam sellers in alibaba will send you images of stock to prove that they have the goods in hand.

For example if you are looking to buy a nokia N95 they will send you images of 100’s of Finland made Nokia N95’s.

But I have experienced,same images are circulated through dozen different suppliers. Either they all are a part of one scam ring or they all have obtained the image from the same source.

When you ask for a sample image always ask to write your name in a piece a paper and take the snaps with it. Just like I have done here.

The image with my partner’s name on it is a fake N95.

The sample images can reveal you a big story. but Don’t trust the supplier just from looking at the sample image. He may have few quality collections of stocks. But that does not mean he will send it your way.

Do not trust the EMS tracking number from alibaba sellers.
Most of the suppliers in alibaba tent to do shipments through EMS. They will send you a tracking number saying that they have done their part of the deal. It is very easy to create a fake EMS tracking number. So be alert until you receive the goods to your hand.

Never send money to a personal bank account to an alibaba seller.
Most of the sellers will ask you to send money to their “Bank of china accounts”. When they send you the bank details look for the bank name. If it is a personnel name avoid sending a cent. If they are a established entity they must be using a business account and should use them in their business transactions. If this is not the case you might be sending money to a Chinese who is scanning you in his pygamas.

If the price of a alibaba seller seems too good to be true, it is too good to be true.
Be rational when making a decision. There is no way that a supplier can offer you a $700 worth product at $200. You will be surprised how many suppliers have these types of prices. True, alibaba is a very good place to find products at filthy cheap prices. But their products do not come out of magic. So do your due diligence when the supplier sends you the quotation.

Don’t fall for samples sent by alibaba sellers
The supplier may have sent you a real sample. (Paid / Free). That does not mean you can trust him with a $10,000 deal. There are suppliers who send you real samples for quality products. But when you place the big order you will either get scammed or will receive a big consignment of crap. So if the supplier cannot meat other credentials, do not trust him just because he sent you a sample.

alibaba scam companies
Scammers know most people are intelligent enough to do a Google search about the company before doing any transaction with them. So some scammers use reputed company names to scam you. Most of mid level and small scale buyers do not go beyond the level of online contacts when making correspondence. Once we search about their company we will see only good things about them. That’s why we must always send money to business accounts. If the account name is different from the company name they are pretending, Red flag; Run away.

visit the alibaba companies in china
Alibaba is not consisting of only Chinese suppliers. Even I do have an active supplier’s account with them. But most of the supplier’s and the most profitable one’s are from china. If your order level value is over $5000 try to visit the supplier at least once. There are cheap trips available to china if you are bit tight on your budget. Once you verify the supplier you do not have to make repetitive visits.

Before selecting suppliers post your choice in the alibaba forum. There is a section dedicated to reveal scam and fraudulent suppliers. It is always better to do a double check in the forum before making that transaction. I have found many helpful members in the forum. One person eventually became one of my partners and we both together have pulled off so many deals in the past 2 years.

Can the scammers over weigh the importance of alibaba. Definetely NO. You cannot find a better market place if you are running a business. Unless you like selling/buying one item at a time on ebay. If you apply the knowledge you gather from this post and use your intelligence, You will be able to get the best out from alibaba b2b market place. If you are running a small online business I highly encourage you to start something off line too. You have a much better chance competing at your local area rather than competing against thousand of international marketers.

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