Have you thought about where you will source your products?
Some people know exactly what they want to sell or at least what category to start in.
Some people stick to one particular product; and some try a bit of everything.
Sticking to one product can be a shortfall; whereas having a variety of different products could be beneficial as you can reach a wider audience. If you can find a niche in the market; sticking to one product may work out for you!
Keeping up to date with current trends is a must!
There are a lot of websites out there; and sometimes I found that ones I nearly bought from were actually fake websites where you never actually receieve anything. They just take your money and then shut the site down so they cannot be traced. Only purchase from websites you feel you can trust; and ones who have the little padlock sign up the top in the URL bar.
Searching the website on google; reading blogs about the website; and reading the trustpilot reviews (if they are listed on there) are things I would strongly recommend doing before making a purchase.
In this post I will talk about where I have personally sourced products from.
One issue I found was that a lot of listings had a minimum requirement on how many units you could purchase. Sometimes there would be a minimum quantity of 150 phone case covers which would mean spending around £90 on one listing. It is a lot of money to spend on testing out a product.
I did end up not using the site anymore as I found the products at the time at a cheaper price elsewhere. This may be an issue if you are not looking to buy things in huge quantities.
DHgate have so many suppliers in which you can buy from, and it can be overwhelming when there are so many listings up for the same item.
On a listing; up the top there will be the sellers name and their account statistics.
It gives you information on how many years the seller has been using DHgate, how many transactions they have had and what percentage of their reviews are positive. The item listing will also state how many purchases have been made from this particular listing and how many reviews there are (if any) in which customers can leave. In this screenshot here, you can see this listing has a rating of 5 stars and there have been 1,112 reviews. If you click on the word reviews; it will show you what people have written about the product; along with pictures if any users have decided to upload their own images to their reviews.
DHgate sell a range of items including clothing, jewellery, wedding dresses and accessories, shoes, hair extensions, beauty accessories, home decor etc.
They are based in China so it can take a while to receive the products. They normally do give an estimate on the postage method and time on the listing. Each seller is different so make sure you read their postage information before making a purchase, especially if you are in a rush for a product.
DHgate does have an app available for apple and android.
Aliexpress has so many suppliers just like DHgate, so it can be overwhelming choosing who to buy from. Sometimes the cheapest listing is not always the best to go with. I have found from time to time that the pictures do not always match up to the quality as shown in the pictures. If there are a variety of sellers; I would pay a little bit more to buy from a seller who has a good rating and ideally good customer reviews to back them up.
In the below screenshot, you can see that the sellers statistics are available which I always use to determine whether I can trust a seller or not. In this case; the seller has 98.4% feedback, they have been selling on the site since 2015, and they are in the above average category for communication, shipping and items as described; which shows a lot of people have had a good experience with them.
Now in this screenshot you can see the information for the particular listing. There has been 929 orders of these earrings; with 383 leaving reviews. They have a rating of 4.9 stars for this product which is very high. Clicking on reviews will allow you to see all the reviews that have been left; with some customers posting up their own pictures of the product they received. This is very helpful in telling if the item does look like the pictures that are shown in the listing.
The quantities for items are generally very high which is great if you want to purchase a huge bulk of one. In this listing there is over 1,000 quantity available. Some sellers apply a discount if you purchase a certain amount. Some others do not; but for this instance the seller will give an additional 5% off if you purchase 5 pairs or more. Sometime the postage will jump up depending on the amount ordered; so always make sure to check carefully at the checkout if the price has suddenly jumped.
A lot of the stores I have seen do not have a minimum order requirement, so you could just purchase 1 quantity to start with to see what the quality is like before committing to a bulk buy.
Listings will have a delivery estimation time frame; some will allow you to upgrade but it will cost. Make sure your location is correct when using the website as the estimated shipping can change depending on where your location is; and some may not even ship the item to your country
Aliexpress sell a range of items including clothing, jewellery, wedding accessories, shoes, electronics, underwear, childrens toys etc. They do sell adult toys and this does randomly come up in my searches sometimes which can be a bit disturbing if you do not want to see it. However if you are looking into going into that market; there are plenty of sellers; and there is a lot of raunchy lingerie available.
They are based in China so it can take a while to receive the products. I have shopped with so many different sellers and sometimes I can get my items within 2 weeks of purchasing. Other times I have had to wait 2 months, it all depends. There is a purchase protection where your payment does not get released to the seller until the item has arrived. After a certain amount of time of not receiving your product; you can open up a case against the seller.
On the rare occassion; I have had to open up cases where items have not arrived. In one instance, the parcel had actually been returned to the seller but they never let me know until I opened a case and queried it.
There has also been a few times where the quality has not matched the description at all; or an item has arrived broken. Keep the item and take pictures as you will need to upload picture evidence if you are after a refund.
Aliexpress are pretty good at resolving disuputes and in my opinion are not biased to the sellers which is good.
The website is easy to use; I mainly use on desktop PC but there is an app available where you can shop with ease on a phone or tablet.
Sparks wholesalers are based in the UK and will let you purchase in singles or in bulk. Of course with bulk you can get cheaper prices. You will need to register and then log in to see prices. They require a minimum order total of £50 which is quite good if you are just starting up; and they are good with delivery times.
I used Sparks wholesalers on one occasion when I was after gifts and christmas items to sell. I loved their products and the quality but found it hard to shift the items on ebay due to the sizing; sending the glass oil burners I was selling had to go as a small parcel so it can really eat into your profit. It probaby also did not help that I only had limited designs; I have seen sellers on ebay dedicated to selling gifts and homeware and they have done exceptionally well. A lot of their items would do very well in shops I feel as they are very good quality and you can make a decent profit margin if you price them well.
As you can see in this screenshot; it shows just a selection of product categories in the left hand side. They are regularly updating their website so it is a good idea to keep on top of their new products.
You have to login to see the trade price; when you do it will show you a price per item and possible cheaper unit prices if you order in bulk.
They also show you the regular retail price in which the item usually sells for; so it gives you a good idea of what price you should list it. I would always do research first to see how many others are selling it on your chosen platform and if you can compete with their price. If no one else is selling it then you can set your price as high as you want.
For each item; they will show you the quantity that is in stock; so for this instance the maximum quantity you would be able to buy of this card design is 20. There is no minimum order which is good especially if you have a budget and would like to buy more variety than just one single design of something.
Sparks wholesalers sell a range of gift and home decor items such as candles & fragrances, oil burners, photo frames, plaques, baby gifts, wedding gifts etc. They also add new items for holidays such as mothers day, fathers day, valentines day, easter and christmas so you can cater for all holidays if you like.
The website is very to use and is simple to add items to the cart and checkout. There is no app for them but they are easy to use on desktop, tablet and phone.
All information and screenshots taken, are accurate as of 6th March 2020.
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