Well as you know it takes trust to form an investment group. So you will have to form a group out of members that trust you. I assume that I was trusted because of my reputation on salehoo. Not my good looks. (Cracks a toothless smile).
As far as the current status of the buyers group we are doing ok. were not making mass money as we expected but were learning as we go. Weve lost money on some pallets and weve made money on some pallets on the truck. But we still have a massive amount of products yet to sell. Not to mention we are buying more stuff as we go.
Right now Im working close to 20 Hours a day just to get things going, and we are still working to get our shipping more automated. I havent had a day off yet since this started. We aquired hundreds of kitchen appliances on our first truckload. And its been tough. We spend alot of time opening boxes and testing units before listing them for sale.
I currently have 4 people that help me when they can and there is still much to be done.
My advise to the next buyers group would be to whoever is the pawn in this group. The person doing the mass amount of the work. That person needs to be able to dedicate ALL of his time to this job. This isnt a quick way to riches for little work. You will be working yourself into the ground. And untill you can afford to hire employees you will be doing everything.
It took me 4 weeks to get all the legalities out of the way and local business registration. I had to sign up for a merchant account and Im always getting calls from my contacts at FedEx. You have to have to know how to manage your finances, register your company, File paperwork, keep track of payments , keep track of listings , keep track of money transfers to your bank, You will have dozens of messages daily from ebay members asking valid to beyond stupid questions. You will have to organize your products, inventory them and pack them into stronger boxes. You will also have to aquire those boxes without spending money as that can kill your profits. I personally goto samsclub every day and get boxes from them for free.
And on top of all that you have to maintain contact with your investment group. Its thier money your working with. And your dealing with many people that have thier own experience. (Listen to them) If they say you should buy a truckload of diapers. You should do it. If you dont heed this warning your investment group will fail.
This is not for lazy people. Right now Im sleeping 3-4 hours a day and working the rest. 7 days a week.
Im Dedicated to making this work. ARE YOU !!!
This wont be a mass money maker. I know that our group will profit. But we have just started and Im not thinking oh were going to make 50k a month anymore. Were thinking 25% to 40% profits on the loads.
The work involved is huge and everything requires your attention. But this is a chance to make very good money , but it wont come without alot of work.
My best advise in this area is if you get an investment group formed, is to listen to your investors. And make decisions with them ,not for them. They are also the ones that can root you on if things seem down.
Right now I think that fudjj is getting geared up to start a second investment group.
Oh btw , our first week of closed listings we have currently closed 120 auctions with bids. Abd we have over 80 more ready to close with bids. Our goal is to close 350 auctions a week. And increase that incrementally.
