Bought fake iPods from Chinese suppliers

Well granted I am new at the wholesale industry but I made my first purchase from liquidation.com for about 7 digital cameras. I made a stupid beginner mistake and thought all 7 would be in proper working condition. Only 4 were in ok condition and I ended up selling all of them but I lost about $200.00. Now I realize what the term quantity variance means...lol 2months before that I bought 2 apple iPods from a Chinese supplier and lost 300.00 because they were fake. I don't have a lot of extra money to keep wasting and it's getting very aggravating. I have learned a lot in the last 4 months though. I have one other possible idea on Mkenterprise.com so hopefully my luck will get better, although I am a little nervous about the wire transfer payment method they require. My question is for the experienced eBay sellers. Did this ever happen to you?

I have noticed the emphasis on NOT doing wire transfers.
I didn't think of the possibility of faulty merchandise. Isn't it under warranty?? Now I AM worried.

CJ

MKenterprise is used by a lot of salehoo members. I have not personally used it, but I'm sure Jimmy and others would recommend it. I believe you are safe send wire transfers to them. On liquidation.com you need to check the condition of the merchandise. There are about 5 different types, (returns, new, shelf pulls, salvage...) I would stick to shelf pulls and new personally. I have lost lots of money getting started selling as well. Keep at it and be careful and you will eventually learn enough to turn a profit.

If you are talking about loosing money. I must say I loose it all the time. Its just part of business. I normally invest in what I know is a proven steady money maker. I also set aside profits for loss potential purchases. We generally loose about 400 to 800 a month on risky purchases but on other items we still make nice profits. Its just part of the trade. You have to be willing to loose on some, But just make sure your not loosing on all. Invest in multiple areas and dont devote all your money to one product source.

As far as mkenterprise we have several hundred members that have purchased from them. Some consider thier prices to be expensive but they do carry items that have nice profit potential. Its just based on where and what market you are selling to.

Another tip is that don't buy too much from a new supplier that you haven't used and try to keep it to a low ticket item until you have verified everything is good such as shipping time, item quality, etc.

Then you can swing for the fences on buying bigger ticket items or in bulk when their verified.

I don't love loosing money, if i do loose money

I did the same mistake, on my first
purchase at Liquidation. I bought
some Telephones Pansonic cordless.

30 phones 10 were good....So now I
stay away from returned merchandise.

So be careful!

John

so totally on conclusion time and luck matters here. send money sit at your home and watch for the yellow cap *&^#er. crazy. 100% no guarantee. its better to do day job and keep moving more than doing this kind of &^%#.

at dhgate.com its a waste of time. its like a ocean. u have to find the perfect seller on your own with your eyes closed. crazy ^**(^( shipping calculator is real &^%& at dhgate for $1000 purchase u pay $ 1250 in shipping. what the hell..i was about to kick on my monitor...
:oops:

Make sure if you're using a supplier you have never used before to try a small order and low price so you can test out things like shipping time, quality of product, etc.

Then you can swing for the fences on larger items after you make sure you are using a reputable supplier.

so totally on conclusion time and luck matters here. send money sit at your home and watch for the yellow cap *&^#er. crazy. 100% no guarantee. its better to do day job and keep moving more than doing this kind of &^%#.

at dhgate.com its a waste of time. its like a ocean. u have to find the perfect seller on your own with your eyes closed. crazy ^**(^( shipping calculator is real &^%& at dhgate for $1000 purchase u pay $ 1250 in shipping. what the hell..i was about to kick on my monitor...
:oops:

LOL, Sorry, I really shouldn't laugh. But for those of us who've been at this for a while... well, it's happened to us all. The only way to get over it is to laugh about it and put it down to experience and try to avoid it happening again. Like the time I purchased a supposedly brand NEW ipod from a dhgate seller and have it dropshipped to an ebay customer. ONly to find out it was a refurb which resulted in the only negative feedback rating I have received.

To be honest I think Ebay sux... buyers are only interested in rock bottom prices and sellers foster that unrealistic expectation by engaging in price wars (I want to make much more than $5 profit selling an ipod but I think many ebay sellers are doing just that)... making it extremely difficult to make a profit. ONly the sellers with extremely cheap suppliers have any hope of competing... especially on top ticket items.

Having said that, there is one really good way to profit on ebay which is not dependant on having inventory or dropshipping at all. And that is to sell information products (downloadable ebooks, videos, audio files). Either your own creations or those you have resale rights to.

Another suggestion I can make is to dump ebay or 'feebay' as many call it since they are so greedy for fees... and try some of the smaller auction websites (just do a search for auction websites on google, there are plenty out there) They have much less competition meaning much more room for profit.

Julia

Another suggestion I can make is to dump ebay or 'feebay' as many call it since they are so greedy for fees... and try some of the smaller auction websites (just do a search for auction websites on google, there are plenty out there) They have much less competition meaning much more room for profit.

This would all work well if other sites were as popular. There might be some market for items on other sites but ebay is way more popular as it is a household name. Heck they are even including ebay on big motion pictures.

Transformers the movie quoted ebay at least a dozen times :D

Hi, Im new here.. I totally don't understand how would it be at all possible to make any profits on Ebay... Maybe I'm missing something. I looked into about 300 different products that I could get through the wholesalers via salehoo, and to my amazement, pretty much every product would sell for about 5 bucks cheaper on Ebay than what I could buy it for.. I'm kinda stuck... I know that Ebay is just a dog race, but I also understand that powersellers wouldn't keep on doing it if it wouldn't be profitable. Any help appreciated.

I guess they buy very large amount of items...

BINGO, buying in large volume is the key to making money on ebay, if you don't have the cash to buy big and get volume pricing, you will get eaten alive!

Yea, I bought some patatoe peelers from
liquidation.com and they are new and now I can't give them away.

John (bacpro)

Yea, I bought some patatoe peelers from
liquidation.com and they are new and now I can't give them away.

John (bacpro)

Hmm I got it. Sell them to the military :D :D

Thats funny, You made my day!

John

I love losing money.

About two out of three of my online ad campaigns lose money -- the third one is where I get it right and make it up.

About one half of all of my stock picks lose money -- the other half make it up.

I've bought merchandise that I literally ended up just giving away as a 'bonus' for new customers, returning customers, excellence in mail delivery, etc. because it sure as hell wasn't selling and I had all the paperweights I could use.

When I was in sales about three out of four of my sales calls were dead ends, and these were 2 hour + presentations -- talk about a loss! But one out of four was all I needed to make a well above average living.

As my father used to tell me when I was cutting my teeth on stock trading, 'Try not to think of it as 'losing money.' Think of it as 'paying tuition.''

If you're losing more than you can afford to, all that means is that you're taking bigger risks than you can afford with your available capital -- this applies whether you're losing $300 on an iPod or $3 million on a real estate deal. Plan better, scale your expenses to your realistic capacities, raise some extra capital through savings or a second job or whatever. Then try again.


Frank