I can't find products to sell and make a living


mack.a.shah
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22 Sep 16 12:49:53 am
I have been here for god knows how long. Everytime I search online for tutorials and guidance I end up with a headache. I'm clueless on what products to sell even when I do have an idea, it simply is not worth it because I cannot find suppliers cheap enough to make a decent living off.

I want to turn my life around for the better for my family for my marriage but feel so stuck and helpless.

I have a disabled mother, a disabled sister, and I want to make life as comfortable as possible for them.

Please help me and advise me as to what am I doing wrong? :(


Last edited by karen_salehoo on 15 Dec 16 06:23:22 am, edited 2 times in total.
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fudjj
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22 Sep 16 02:10:46 am
Hi Mack,

I notice you've posted this under dropshipping, so is it safe to assume you are looking at dropshipping as your chosen model of e-commerce?


Mark (fudjj)

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mack.a.shah
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22 Sep 16 06:37:36 am
Hi Mark, Yes that is correct as capital is limited. Thanks for your reply.


fudjj
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22 Sep 16 10:54:38 pm
Hi Mack,

Dropshipping certainly has it advantages, but margin isn't one of them

E-commerce is a risk = "potential" reward business. By that I mean, the more someone risks, the greater the potential reward is. For example, a buyer outlays $10,000 on a wholesale load, then that is a risk. So to counter that risk and encourage the buyer to spend the money, the wholesaler gives a discounted per unit price that now allows the buyer a competitive price to sell at with good margin remaining.

Dropship offers low to no risk because there is low to now up front costs, so in return there isn't the margin you are looking for built into the dropshipped products.

This is a really tough road, especially if you're not in a position to be marketing your own website because now you don't just have the low margin impacting on you, you are in the middle of a very tough ball game.

Compeitition - and I mean just the compeition you face from thousands of other sellers frol all over the world all trying to sell the same products to the same customers as you. Now that's just dropship competition, but on top of that you also have those wholesale sellers who have spent the big dollars and have secured prices that a dropshipper can only dream of seeing.

So now you're not only competiing against other dropshippers, where you are at least on a level playing field, but now you are competing against wholesale sellers who have a massive price advantage over you. 9 times out of 10, a wholesale seller is going to be able to sell cheaper than wht you can even buy the product for, let alone try to sell it for and that all comes back to the greater risk they have taken in outlaying so much cash upfront.

If you are going to make money from dropshipping, you really have a few options how I see it.

Marketing your own website to keep your competition down, if you don't have the ability to do that, then you have to look at either smashing out your listings or dewaling in a slow market where the big sellers aren't playing due to nthe slow turnover.

Smashing the listings, sites like eBay offer great traffic flow, so common sense dictates that you have more chances of making sales on a platform like that, but here is the downside. With listing fees, you are running a risk by running with massive uploads of products. It's a startegy that has potential to work, but can easily fail with you losing money on all your listing fees.

A lower risk is to chose free listing sites and smash out your listings there. Sure, traffic is going to be much less, so that will uausally translate into slow sales in the best case scenario, but all you have to lose by smashing listings out on sites like this is the time it takes you to do it, you aren't risking losing cash on listing fees.

You're other option, use the big sites like eBay to chase the slow markets, the markets where products sell slower and the big sellers are ignoring while they chase bigger fish. Here is where dropshipping can really shine in my opnion, especially if you can get into consumable markets. If you get into a consumable market, then it gives you a chance to build customer relationships that encourge repeate business and if you can develop a few of those markets and the repeate business that can flow from them, then slow sales aren't that much of a factor.

.


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karen_salehoo
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21 Nov 16 11:41:20 pm
Hi Mack,

Recognizing the problem is a first step and that is already a good start for you! Do not give in to pressure or demands. You got this and for sure, your determination will take you somewhere. :)

Since you mentioned you have capital constraints, why not start with selling second hand products from your home? Or perhaps you have unused stuff lying around that you can sell for a reasonable sum of money. The good thing with selling stuff from around your house is for you to be able to pin point goods that sell fast and even goods you might be interested at. This is one way of finding your niche. Plus, you can accumulate feedback for your profile and this could level you up faster from a newbie seller since feedback is important in selling online to establish your trust rating. After some practice with goods from around the home and seeing the results, you can then proceed to finding a suitable supplier for the product/s you wish to concentrate selling.

Happy Selling! :)


Cheers,

Karen
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preditorcuts
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22 Nov 16 07:35:47 pm
Hi Mack,

To introduce myself, I'm a digital marketing strategist with International Wholesale Inc. I have a bit of experience in selling and buying online. More importantly, I've been where you're at in my life. I have a disabled schizophrenic mother and a one-time drug-addicted brother. All this while my father was not in our lives and I was the oldest, the one my family depended on (this was a few years back).

I will tell you a bit about how small things to scrape money here and there may help you, as I am an expert in online marketing.

If I were you, or if I knew what I know now back when I was in my situation, I would first use buy/sell phone-based applications like OfferUp, 5 Miles, and LetGo (both available on apple store and play store) to sell items around the house. You simply post a pic of any item laying around your house and put how much. But TRY TO POST THE IMAGE OF THE PRODUCT/ITEM IN AN ATTRACTIVE MANNER. I cannot emphasize this enough. This should be true whether you display the product on phone-based applications, on social media, or on your ecommerce platform.

For instance, lets say I have an old laptop. I would first clean it and make it look shiny. Then I would make sure that I would have, for example, a nice sparkling Christmas bag beside it (to insinuate to your customers that they can buy it as a gift). So when you actually take a pic of your item, make sure it's as enticing as possible, with nice colors, contrast colors, sparkling things, etc.

Besides just selling everyday items around your house, you can also buy things wholesale, and resell them retail. You can also check out dollardays.com and koleimports.com (no affiliation with these sites). Here you can look for deals, and buy bulk. Then resell. Buy a case/pallet of nice, attractive laptop cases for example, or iPad covers, and then resell them on your ecommerce platform, on OfferUp, LetGo, 5 Miles, and other buy/sell phone based applications.You can also sell them on Facebook groups which I talk about below (you should also promote your ecommerce platform on ALL these phone-based applications and across ALL relevant social media platforms. This would drive more traffic to your ecommerce platform, or in the case of some apps, they can just contact you directly through the app or social media platform).

But you could do MORE with phone/based applications and Facebook groups. What I do now (my father owns a computer store I help market), I look for deals online. For example, I look for iphones with cracked screens that are offered for very little. I buy them, fix them, and resell them on the same platform or elsewhere. You don't need to know how to fix phones to do this. You simply need to spot deals and get them, then resell. You may need just a bit of capital in the beginning, but believe me it's worth it. You can also spot deals on Facebook groups. Facebook groups is a huge one and I talk about this next.

Next, is Facebook buy/sell groups. Mack, this is a HUGE factor for selling and you could consider this my 'dirty little secret' of selling and driving traffic to my ecommerce platforms.. You must, you must, join as many Facebook buy/sell groups as possible. Make sure that they're around your area. For example, if you live in Detroit, search for 'buy sell detroit' and go to the 'groups' tab and request to join as many buy/sell groups in your area as possible. So when you post every day items on the phone-based applications, you also post them to these groups. You can get absolutely HUGE exposure from sharing your items to facebook groups. Here's an excellenttt video to prime you on selling through facebook groups:

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Here's his entire subscription on selling through facebook (keep in mind that all his strategies apply to ecommerce, not just brick-and-mortar businesses):
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But you could also join other relevant buy/sell groups NOT in your area and use these groups to promote items that are on your site since you'd obviously have a drop-shipping program. You can join buysell groups all over the country. You're allowed to join up to 300 fb groups. USE THEM ALL lol.

Next, you should make your ecommerce platform as simple, engaging, and enticing as possible. Here, you could work on designing it in the beginning. But more importantly, you need to do two things before you sell anything on your ecommerce platform. You need to know WHAT category of products you're gonna sell, and WHO you're gonna sell to. If you cant figure these things out, then don't start promoting your ecommerce platform just yet. In conjunction with your ecommerce, you can do the above items on selling everyday items or reselling wholesale bulk items, or finding deals and reselling them. And you could slowly figure out your product category and target market later. Regardless, an ecommerce platform MUST be one of your channels. And you can do many things to promote your products once you figure out what you're gonna sell.

After that, you should find out where your target market is online and promote on those platforms. The people you're selling to, are they on facebook, twitter, tumblr, flickr? Find out and create an account for every relevant social media platform. Later on, when you have a budget, use adwords and PPC campaigns. Or even better, Facebook ads to drive traffic to your site.

Anyways, I think that's a bit more than you asked for lol but I hope some of it helped. Take it one step at a time and have faith. Start small and work your way up. When you start small, you slowly figure out what works and what doesn't work. This way you don't have to put all your carrots into one basket and risk losing everything. All in all, you're on the right track. You have the right mindset and the appropriate intrinsic (and extrinsic) motivations.

Good luck and let me know if I could help in any way!

Best,

Abe


Last edited by fudjj on 22 Nov 16 08:52:45 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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fudjj
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22 Nov 16 08:59:09 pm
Welcome to the forum and thanks for your advice Abe,

I just need to make quite clear to our members that information contained within the videos is not authorized by SaleHoo and is in no way related to SaleHoo whatsoever..


Mark (fudjj)

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marcedhk
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4 Dec 16 07:02:27 pm
Hey Mack, how are things going - were you able to source some products that'll give you the profit margin you needed?

Marc


helen-bellart
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6 Dec 16 04:34:15 pm
Hi Mack,
If you are looking for a good profit from every product that you sell then please visit my website and read more about my dropshiping program . I offer high profit for every seller.
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Regards and good luck with a business.

Helen Bellart


Helen Bellart is spanish fashion brand specialized in exclusive clothes, accessories,silk scarves, handbags and decorative pillows with very original and unique design all handmade in Spain.

 

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