How to start selling using SaleHoo?

Hey everyone. I just joined SaleHoo and I must admit it looks very promising. I just need some help getting started or at least some help deciding whether this idea of selling items for wholesale prices online is right for me.

First off, I'm only 16. I thought dropshipping would have some good potential for make some small capital online and I could do it. Will me being 16 have any negatives that make it hard for me to sell online (besides the fact that some might question my 'credibility' cause I'm younger)?

Also, I was wondering what someone with experience would suggest I should. I have NO start up capital and need to make some money first before I can reinvest it into buying bulk. Anyone have any pockets of wisdom they could throw my way?

Hi,

Your age has absolutely no bearing on wheter or not you can sell online, however you may have or may not have some problems with your suppliers (depending on what your selling), unlikely though. For most things though, your age does not matter. As a buyer, I don't care what age you are, as long as you have the product I want at a good price with excellent customer service. Also make the customer feel special, especially if you want repeat business. As a seller, as long as you approach me in a professional manner and you know what you are doing and of course have the money or the ability to generate the money and there are no legal issues with your age, I would have no problem doing business with you.

Age doesn't matter, what matters is how much do you want it and how hard you are willing to work at it.

It is very hard to make money by dropshipping. A very few do, but most do not. Most dropshipped items you can find cheaper at different auction sites. I would personally stay away from dropshipping. It is not worth it.

Liquidation is a better option, however you said you have no start-up capital. I would sell your things that you do not use around your house. Sell other people's items that they do not want, offer them a percentage of the sale. Shop at yard sales and resell the items that you bought at bargain prices for a profit, do your product research. Whatever you have to sell, someone will buy it for the right price. Do odd jobs (yard work, snow shovelling if in snowy area, run errands for people). There are plenty of ways to earn enough start-up capital, you just have to go out and do it.

Read the other topics in the forums, don't be shy to ask others for help ( the vast majority will help, good people here). Never stop learning.

I wish you the best of luck in your endeavor. This is not an easy business, if it was, everyone would be doing it. Just remember to work hard, keep trying your best, be honest with others and yourself and always be positive.

Thanks Brad that was very helpful. Since dropshipping seems to be out of the question, I'll go to liquidation. How much is enough start-up capital for liquidation?

'I would personally stay away from dropshipping. It is not worth it.'

Dropshipping works perfect in certain markets, certain areas.

Research your market before going anywhere with it and you'll see exactly what this means.

In certain niche areas, just like with clickbank, dropshipping is the perfect choice. There are certain product areas on ebay that are just simply fit for dropshipping, like CDs, DVDs, certain types of books.

Yet most of the time, dropshipping is not worth it on ebay. At all.


eBay is counter-productive to the market that dropshipping entails. On Amazon, on e-checkout and I suppose Godaddy market also now too dropshipping is perfect. On craigslist its perfect, and right through your store. Or right on your store.

These are all the perfect places that dropshipping does its job, and makes significant profit and always will. Period, because the setting of choice.

On the other hand, in places saturated with them like eBay and even uBid, it's never going to go anywhere. Those places are really not meant for alot of dropshipping as they're just....well all they use is Paypal.

i OFFER is actually a better place for drop shipping, oddly its just because direct sales are much better and faster. In the auction world, eBay and Bonanzle do some drop shipping. Just not in any volume. They aren't the venue for it, it gets in the way of auctions.

Auctions have since 2007 really started to take more precedence in the online marketplace, and in 'auctions' you are going to be faced with the harsh facts: Any product will sell under, often under wholesale at auction or be inflated to an irrational price which is random. It's NOT direct selling.

In fact I need to explain something important. eBay is NOT a direct selling venue. It's always been a auction venue, direct selling is a 'PRIVILEGE' only offered. They don't have to even use it - at all. That is what buy it now is. It works, works fine for those certain niches where it fits for some odd reason.

But it doesn't work anywhere else on ebay or yahoo auctions. Its just counter productive. To ever go anywhere with dropshipping you have to:

A) Be able to accept credit cards worldwide on the fly. Only your own site, or merchant sites like I offer even have this option.

B) Be selling everything in quality, and in volume at the fixed merchant price. That price is always going to be higher. It is at Amazon, Craigslist, Godaddy, Shoppingcart, I could go on from here. It always is going to be.

And in the end it isn't going to be at ebay or auction houses as its going to be slashed in price to get rid of what they buy in bulk.

Hmm...well it appears that I have no idea what I am doing. Would anybody be able to explain to me step by step what the best course of action I should take should be?

Well the first step is your market. Tell us exactly what you are interested in or might decide to sell, and then someone can answer exactly how this effects your choices going in etc.

Let me tell you. Bayericlowe is a tuned pro when it comes to online sales.

You are a newbie and should base what you do on that basis.

I know Bayericlowe does not approve of eBay and for valid reasons but if you want to start slow and get your feet wet, I wouldn't shy away from eBay.

Start an account with them and sell a couple of items. Yes, it is true, there are issues with Paypal and you will probably have your account limited at some point.

One thing you can do to limit the amount of Paypal pains is to set up your Paypal account correctly and get a business account with a debit card. Make sure to supply them with a bank account and credit card or a 'Simon gift card'.
Give them a valid phone number too. At some point they will want your SSN, not in the beginning but eventually. Make sure you eBay info and your Paypal info match exactly.

Just sell anything you can get your hands on and don't worry so much about bottom line. Just get some volume going. Get some money running through Paypal and a bunch of transactions through eBay.

Sell some CDs your not using or just copy the songs to your computer and sell the CDs. Sell clothing your not using etc... etc... .

This will at least get you rolling. Then you can look at Amazon Ioffer and Bonanzle and eventually your own website.

Being a small time seller is to your advantage on eBay because you have nothing to lose except some time and small coin.

Ok I'll try selling some stuff around the house on eBay. And I would like to try to sell electronics but that seems like the cost would be too much. That's what I'm interested in though.

Sadly like others have spoken before you won't get anywhere with electronics over there. Buy or take up liquidated stock that can go very fast there.

But I find other venues are more suited for electronics. Since the arrival of Big Ticket Depot for instance alot of electronics has gotten sold right through that. It truly just depends, that's about it.

Ok I'll try selling some stuff around the house on eBay. And I would like to try to sell electronics but that seems like the cost would be too much. That's what I'm interested in though.

Well, you will want to avoid high priced electronics in the beginning. You will just get your self into trouble with Paypal.

Don't start that until you reach 100 FB. Make sure your ship real fast. Shipping DSRs are the biggest hit sellers take. GEt them up to 4.8 to 5.0.

Prepare to get limited by Paypal at some point. This means they will hold your money until they get tracking and or a pos. FB from your buyer. Also expect to spend some time on the phone with Paypal too.

Once you get to 20 DSRs the holds get much less or gone.

Sorry...what does DSR stand for?

Sorry...what does DSR stand for?

Its an acronym for 'detailed seller rating', if I am correct. EBay added this rating system in 08 to their Feedback system. It is a foiled system and is very detrimental to eBay sellers but is one which eBay has pushed onto sellers as part of their 'improved buyer experience'.

This system has lead to the suspension of several thousand Powersellers which in my opinion will lead to the eventual destruction of eBay unless completely reversed.

Some reports state the DSR addition has lead to over a billion dollars of lost income for eBay due to policies of suspending sellers not in compliance with a 'high DSR'.

If a sellers account drops below 4.3 DSR in any of the four DSR catagories they are considered in the bottom 1% of seller performance and are unceremoniously booted from eBay.

The creator of this system quit eBay not to long after its inception as he was also a critic of the system as not being accurate.

Thank you for clearing that up...I don't know all the acronyms for this yet.

More on DSRs.

EBay failed to properly educate buyers in the rating system which is based on a 5 point system. 1-5. A '5' is the only score which helps sellers. A buyer giving a seller a 4 is in actual fact hurting a sellers score and causes it to go down as well as hurt the sellers search standing.

A seller continuing to get only '4's will eventually find himself at the bottom percentage of sellers. A '1' drastically effects a sellers score.

Sort of like the FB system. A seller getting 2 negs out of a hundred suddenly finds himself at 98% with one more killing his account.

WIth the DSR system a seller may get a positive from the buyer but still find his seller account going down the tubes due to the DSR system.

A buyer might think he is helping a seller with a score of 5,5,5,4. The 4 being for the shipping time. But in actual fact if 20 buyers do this to a seller with 100 POS. FB could still land the seller on the outside looking in.

O ok I understand what your saying now. I guess I'll just work on getting my reputation up in eBay before I start selling anything. Would anyone suggest that I maybe sell on Amazon first? They seem to have easier competition and it seems possible to dropship.

O ok I understand what your saying now. I guess I'll just work on getting my reputation up in eBay before I start selling anything. Would anyone suggest that I maybe sell on Amazon first? They seem to have easier competition and it seems possible to dropship.

AS much As I just dumped on eBay I would actually suggest starting there first.
It is the easiest to start. You can literally be selling in half a day.

Just start slow and be very detailed with the info you give Paypal and eBay.

Dropshipping woks fine for me so far. Not everyone has the available cash especially when starting out to take advantage of Liquidations. Fair enough after you have some cash but you can build your bank with dropshipping then move into Liquidations.

I dropship from China/USA to Australia and I can still make a buck.

Ok. Well I'll just start in eBay then getting some feedback for now. Once I get rolling I'll probably repost a thread asking for some more advice.

I would venture a guess that, at 16, and no longer a child, you have a bunch of stuff at home that you no longer use. CDs, old cell phones, Lego bricks, kids books, backpacks, Power Ranger or Star Wars figures, football cards, walkman, dvds, outgrown sporting equipment like tennis raquet, baseball bat, helmets, bicycle, skateboard, footballs. Not only will you get yourself some extra space in your room, you would be surprised what kind of prices you can get for this kind of thing at online auctions. If you gather up everything you no longer use, take great photos and write good listings, describing your items accurately and listing faults truthfully (your writing skills are great) you will be able to get yourself some start-up capital to maybe then look for items you can purchase especially for selling for profit. It's not easy but with determination and willingness to succeed, you will be off to a great start. Best of luck to you and well done to have the 'get-up-and-go' to want to earn a little extra at your age.

I would not do dropshipping at eBay unless you know what you're doing, its not the proper venue for things like that. I don't think it ever has been. In my opinion I would look into Big Ticket Depot.

Though sometimes people still do it, where they are able to.

What is Big Ticket Depot? I Googled it but the only thing I found was a site that seems to be selling ads or ad space. Is that the website that you're talking about?

Link hidden: Login to view

Thanks for the link. Do you suggest I become a broker? The option of being a seller is not available yet, but I'm unsure of what the broker option entails. Do you have any details about it you could share?

Put your efforts on sites that cost zero to list.

craigslist
Bonanzle
blujay
ioffer
ilist

You can set up a booth at BONANZLE and drive traffic from the resources provided in the site.

I would not recommend Ebay as they charge arm and leg to list and use paypal only.

:)