No idea!

[R.Tim]

Morning,
I'm looking at setting up an online subscription service.
I've secured a domain name and I'm now looking for a Chinese supplier.
The items I'm buying are small and light. Fit through postbox and under half a kilo. Postage from China seems too be massively expensive even for samples.

Can anyone advise what I should look to be paying for shipping for small and light items? I'm afraid I will be ripped off!

Also, I've not built a website yet, I'm useless. Any advice on the must idiot-proof site builders?

I'll also gladly and gratefully accept any advice on buying products and seesell online.

Thank you very much in advance!

R

 

[finleydesign]

Hi

You will tend shipping does work out expensive until you start to order qty, and samples will always be very expensive, also don't forget to factor in the import tax as well.

There's no real set price as it depends on MOQ.

A lot of the build your own can be a good place to start, but don't expect miracles as lot of people fall in to the trap of build it and they will come, you will need to be doing a lot of marketing and other ways to drive traffic.

If you don't mind me saying, it sounds like you've been drawn into the many get rich scheme videos that are do the rounds on the web, Ecommerce is not simple and takes a lot of time and investment to succeed.

 

[R.Tim]

Thank you very much for your reply!

I understand it takes a long time, it's taken a while to get this far! I'm working full time and was going to start this up on the side hopefully.

I was looking into grants for women in business to see if I could get some financial help too.

It may well fall flat on its arse, but I'm sick of falling into the shoulda, woulda, coulda bracket

 

[fisicx]

Once you have sourced a supplier arrange for the good to be shipped to the UK. There are plenty of agents in China that can arrange shipping for you and even do the sourcing (so you don't get ripped off). Talk to
@MY OFFICE IN CHINA , Ron's a good man. When you have the goods all you then need to worry about it packaging and dispatch. There are fulfillment companies that can do this for you. They will also manage your returns.

Subscription services can be very difficult to market so it's not going to be cheap. You will probably be spending more than you make in profit for a while until the business becomes established.

The website also needs all the bells and whistles so budget £1000 to get this sorted (it might be less, it might be more).

 

[R.Tim]

That's great, thank you for the advice! I will definitely get in touch with Ron!

 

[R.Tim]

I also feel I should have studied web design in uni..1K....ouch

 

[R.Tim]

How do new businesses tend to fund themselves?
Am I barking up the wrong tree applying for a grant? Am I better off getting a startup loan? Or I guess I save until I can afford to do it without financial intervention?

 

[fisicx]

How do new businesses tend to fund themselves?

It depends on the business. If you want to be a window cleaner all you need is a bucket and ladder and good boots to distribute flyers.

Your business won't attract funding until you have a business plan showing financial forecasts and how you plan to pay back the loan. And because it's a high risk business they will want a large chunk of your profits.

You need to calculate the cost of say 100,000 units plus shipping, packaging, fulfillment and marketing. Multiply by 12 and that's how much you need for the first year. You then look at the subscription costs and work out if you will make a profit.

 

[R.Tim]

100,000 units? Gosh, I don't think I'll need anywhere near that many.

Can I ask why you would buy that much?

 

[fisicx]

Because Chinese suppliers often have an MOQ. It's not worth their while setting up contracts for small numbers. Without knowing what you plan to sell it's difficult to advise.

If you wanted to sell soap for example. If it sells for 99p in the UK you wouldn't want to pay more than 10p per unit from China. They may well come in boxes of 1000 to that £100 for the soap. If the subscription box has 10 item that's £1000 for stock for one month or £12K per year. You would need all this as one order to keep shipping costs down. Note it's shipping not postage. You then need packaging for the subscription boxes and these may well have an MOQ is they are custom to your business (eg logo printing)

 

[Mr D]

Morning,
I'm looking at setting up an online subscription service.
I've secured a domain name and I'm now looking for a Chinese supplier.
The items I'm buying are small and light. Fit through postbox and under half a kilo. Postage from China seems too be massively expensive even for samples.

Can anyone advise what I should look to be paying for shipping for small and light items? I'm afraid I will be ripped off!

Also, I've not built a website yet, I'm useless. Any advice on the must idiot-proof site builders?

I'll also gladly and gratefully accept any advice on buying products and seesell online.

Thank you very much in advance!

R

If Chinese shipping is too expensive then buy in bulk, store in the UK and ship from UK to customers.
Among other things you won't get angry customers refusing to pay the import costs and demanding a full refund including postage from you.

Your marketing costs will likely be you biggest cost for your first few years.

 

[JamieM]

100,000 units? Gosh, I don't think I'll need anywhere near that many.

Can I ask why you would buy that much?

It depends what you’re selling but highly unlikely you will need or want to buy 100,000 units.

 

[fisicx]

It depends what you’re selling but highly unlikely you will need or want to buy 100,000 units.

10 items per box x 12 months = 120 items. 1000 boxes sold per month comes to 120,000 items.

 

[R.Tim]

If Chinese shipping is too expensive then buy in bulk, store in the UK and ship from UK to customers.
Among other things you won't get angry customers refusing to pay the import costs and demanding a full refund including postage from you.

Your marketing costs will likely be you biggest cost for your first few years.

Maybe I'm being dim here, but won't I still need to pay shipping to get the items from China to here?

 

[fisicx]

Maybe I'm being dim here, but won't I still need to pay shipping to get the items from China to here?

Yes, but it's a lot cheaper than paying postage. The more you ship the lower the cost per item.

 

[Mr D]

Maybe I'm being dim here, but won't I still need to pay shipping to get the items from China to here?

Pay $4 shipping per item or pay $700 to ship 50,000 items....

You with bulk get far better prices than single orders.

 

[R.Tim]

^^^^^^ of course! Now I understand.
I'm paying a fair bit to get samples sent over. Then if they're ok, would be looking to place an order.

 

[Guy Incognito]

You need to be importing containers to get any sort of decent volume shipping pricing. I get over £80,000 worth of product on a container which costs me £2,300 door to door.

 

[fisicx]

^^^^^^ of course! Now I understand.
I'm paying a fair bit to get samples sent over. Then if they're ok, would be looking to place an order.

And that’s when you discover a MOQ of 10,000 or whatever. It’s always worth asking these sort of questions first. And it’s why using a sourcing agent can save you a lot of heartache. There are loads of horror stories of orders being delivered where quality falls far short of that expected. A sourcing agent can check the order before dispatch to make sure you aren’t getting duff goods.

 

[R.Tim]

And that’s when you discover a MOQ of 10,000 or whatever. It’s always worth asking these sort of questions first. And it’s why using a sourcing agent can save you a lot of heartache. There are loads of horror stories of orders being delivered where quality falls far short of that expected. A sourcing agent can check the order before dispatch to make sure you aren’t getting duff goods.

Is my approach unusual then? I'd have thought having a look at the stuff first made sense before buying thousands of pounds worth?

Or is this where people employ a sourcing agent? Surely that would cost more?

How do people do this?

 

[fisicx]

Your approach is fine. But while sourcing a supplier you need to ask about MOQ, shipping, customs clearance, lead times and a zillion other things. Some sellers are unscrupulous and will send you perfect samples but deliver poor quality goods.

Contact Ron @MY OFFICE IN CHINA - he is a good member here and can advise on the best way to progress.

 

[Mr D]

Is my approach unusual then? I'd have thought having a look at the stuff first made sense before buying thousands of pounds worth?

Or is this where people employ a sourcing agent? Surely that would cost more?

How do people do this?

Looking at the samples is good.
However some have found that samples came from one factory and finished goods came from another... and they weren't the same.
Checking the goods is always good, even better if can be checked before you get them.

 

[fisicx]

Which is what a sourcing agent does. They visit the factory and do all the research for you. A number of members here actually traveled to China to work with the sourcing agent.

I spoke to someone today who I built a website for a while back for their subscription box. They pumped 15K into marketing and still couldn't make it work. The used kickstarter to get the funds and had a load of backers. But all they did was give out free boxes to the backers, they just couldn't get many others to signup. Most people did the trial and never continued. The whole project folded after 18 months.

You might be more lucky. But without marketing you will struggle. And marketing costs money.

 

[R.Tim]

Your approach is fine. But while sourcing a supplier you need to ask about MOQ, shipping, customs clearance, lead times and a zillion other things. Some sellers are unscrupulous and will send you perfect samples but deliver poor quality goods.

Contact Ron @MY OFFICE IN CHINA - he is a good member here and can advise on the best way to progress.

I think I've sent him a message so I'm just awaiting a reply.
Is it expensive to get help from a sourcing agent?

 

[R.Tim]

Looking at the samples is good.
However some have found that samples came from one factory and finished goods came from another... and they weren't the same.
Checking the goods is always good, even better if can be checked before you get them.

Yes, I did wonder about this.

 

[R.Tim]

Which is what a sourcing agent does. They visit the factory and do all the research for you. A number of members here actually traveled to China to work with the sourcing agent.

I spoke to someone today who I built a website for a while back for their subscription box. They pumped 15K into marketing and still couldn't make it work. The used kickstarter to get the funds and had a load of backers. But all they did was give out free boxes to the backers, they just couldn't get many others to signup. Most people did the trial and never continued. The whole project folded after 18 months.

You might be more lucky. But without marketing you will struggle. And marketing costs money.

If I could, I would also visit to see manufacturers, I just can't afford to do that unfortunately.

That's awful to hear! I'm trying to keep to single products to keep things cheaper and less complicated- I hope it's a strategy that works!

Thanks for all your help by the way

 

[fisicx]

I thought you said you were doing a subscription box?

To me that means I get to try new products each month. Or are you just sending people the same product each month? If that's the case it's not really a subscription box.

Either way, it's the marketing that will determine the failure or success not the actual product. What's your budget?

What is it you are planning to sell?

 

[MOIC]

I think I've sent him a message so I'm just awaiting a reply.

Hi @R.Tim

I replied to your private message 30 minutes after you sent your messsage this morning, please check your message box.

You can contact me via my website using the link below in my signature.

I’ll talk you through all the processes and to ensure you choose the correct factories, carry out supplier evaluations, consolidate sample shipping, prepare supplier contracts, pre production sampling, quality control and shipping to your door.

I look forward to assisting you with your project.

Ron

 

[Nico Albrecht]

I think you got it all wrong and you start in reverse. For online subscription service only one metric counts. Customer Acquisition Cost: The One Metric That Can Determine Your Company’s Fate.