What you should always remember, to avoid a worthless pile of festering stock residing in your garage!

Would you walk in to a shop with your eyes shut, ask where the bargain bins are, dip your hand in, grab the first thing you feel, take it to the checkout and pay for it. Then only open your eyes and look at what you’ve purchased after you’ve left the shop?

No, of course you wouldn’t, although it might be quite fun to try that one day just for the chuckle value! The reason I ask is because it puts into context a little story I’d like to recount to you today. I think it’s possible that you may have had a similar experience. If you haven’t – great – hopefully this will stop you actually ever having this experience and it should really help you out.

I received an email from a lady recently (I won’t use her real name so lets call her Jane – and please rest assured that she has given me her blessing to recount this tale) who has only just started selling on eBay. Jane had purchased one of my home study courses and had been diligently working her way through the modules and had listed some items she had purchased at wholesale, on the site…

Jane had, as I said, been working diligently through the steps, but unfortunately something happened to her as she progressed – and this could easily happen to you too.

Jane became sidetracked. Hence her email to me for some advice.

From the information she gave me in her email, it was plain to see where Jane had gone wrong and it was all down to the product research process. Quite frankly this is one of the most important parts of sourcing and selling online and I really cannot stress how crucial this is to ensuring your business is successful.

So, to give you a little bit more background, firstly Jane had decided on her niche (cake toppers) and had started researching the most in-demand products in this niche, along with potential suppliers. So far, so good. But that’s when it went very, very pear shaped.

Jane ordered her first wholesale order…of novelty keyrings.

I know. There is absolutely no relationship, link or relevancy between cake toppers and novelty keyrings.

But they were only 50 pence each. A bargain – as I’m sure you’ll agree.

After a swift to-ing and fro-ing of emails between myself and Jane, it transpired that as she was browsing wholesale sites for cake toppers, she kept seeing links and advertisements popping up for other wholesalers and other products, so she had clicked through to one of them, then clicked through again, and again, until she was about as far away from her original destination of cake toppers that she could possibly be – and ended up at a novelty gifts wholesaler.

Keyrings For 50p!!!! flashed before her eyes and, in her own words

“All common sense flew out of the window. I forgot everything I’d learned and just saw a bargain. So I bought them, thinking I could definitely resell them for a profit.”

Potentially Jane could probably have resold these keyrings for a profit, however to make matters worse, she had actually purchased a random assortment, and you’ve guessed it – when they arrived she knew she was in a predicament just by glancing at them.

So, to cut an even longer story short, in effect Jane spent a chunk of money and bought blind. She had no idea what was going to turn up in her parcel and had been totally blind-sided by the bargainous nature of the product – even though it had no relevance to what she was actually looking for,

The consequences: Jane is now left with a load of stock that is worth practically nothing and I’m guessing has already been removed to a very dark corner of her garage somewhere.

I really feel Jane’s pain because this is such an easy mistake to make.

Getting over-excited about piles of cheap stock that you have conducted absolutely no research into to see whether it is a viable product for resale is very common. It’s the equivalent to sticking your hand into that bargain bin with your eyes shut.

Even now I sometimes have to stop myself getting distracted by offers on products that I previously had no interest in…until I saw the price! It’s second nature and I’m sure this has probably happened to you too at some point. You spot some products at wholesale – they are cheap, you like the look of them and you reckon you can mark them up a billion percent and make a killing online.

You’re rubbing your hands together in glee at the thought of all the easy money you’re going to make and can’t wait for your bargains to arrive. Then when they do, you realise your mistake…too late.

What you think will be a good seller and what is actually a good seller are two completely different things. And the only way you will know for sure is:

1. Research well before you make your choice
2. Not get distracted by perceived ‘bargains’
3. Keep your focus – and your head
4. Know exactly what you are buying

It’s simple to research products before you source them and buy at wholesale. Yes, it takes a little extra time, but you’d rather that than spend your hard earned money on useless stock wouldn’t you?

So, what’s the moral of the story?

Please don’t be blinded by a bargain and don’t assume that just because you like the look of a product and it’s ‘cheap’ you’ll be able to resell it.

Otherwise you could end up like Jane who is likely to be visiting her local car boot sale… and specializing in sales of novelty keyrings very soon. 

As always I wish you the best of success

Amanda