Probably far out of my depth

[radford12]

Evening, you will have to forgive me business ignorance.

Im after a bit of guidance and thought a business forum would be the place to go asking questions.

Im a young man, going to university and would like to make a little bit of side money. Ive enjoyed selling on my own dvds and computer games etc. I've always really enjoyed the whole 'trading process'.

I've been saving up money for about 3 months and have now saved £500 for a little business venture.

What im looking to do is to buy a small bulk product and resell them over amazon, ebay, play.com etc. Products such as dvds, headphones, old phones, computer games, computer parts etc.

When i google, buying bulks etc i dont really get any direct links to a bulk saler etc.

Any kind of advice, or links, or just general business help would be brillant. I just need a bit of guidance as I have the money to get a small home business running to give myself an extra form of income.


Cheers.

 

[Inspiredtoact]

www.thewholesaleforums.co.uk should be a good place to start and get some good abckground knowledge and info from.

Goodluck.

 

[radford12]

Cheers for the link

- just as a bit of personal advice.

Do you think what i have is actually viable and a good idea?

Obviously i dont want to spend £500 on something thats not going to work.

 

[Inspiredtoact]

Good on you for wanting to do something productive. It is a good idea as long as you understand your products and your potential customers needs.

£500 is a tight budget, but id start on ebay and see how it goes from there, dont be too cheap, make sure your making profit on each sale and give the best possible service you can.

 

[gregs2769]

best way to start is to identify what products you want to sell. As doing generalists search's for bulk buying and wholesellers will turn up nothing.

But to be honest £500 is not gonna get you a whole load of stock. Why not have a think about your skills and offer a service? Or jump on People per hour and bid for some work on there. A few hours each week doing work on that website can give you some extra spending money.

 

[radford12]

Thanks for your replies.

People per hour is something that ive previously though about, but im not sure exactly how id approach the whole thing, what would i have to offer etc? All i really want to do is buy some stock, sell it and make a smallish profit.

Is that actually something that can fit in on a site like that?

£500 is a small budget. But i think you can get some good products for that amount of money and almost double what youv paid.

 

[gregs2769]

what you doing your degree in?

 

[radford12]

Law - looking to become a lawyer/work for the CPS.

I just like to have some sort of purchase and sale as a bit of fun and extra income.

 

[Matthew_28]

Perhaps you could see what products are trending at the moment, whats hot and selling on eBay...

Just a thought.

Regards
Matt

 

[gregs2769]

see whats going cheap on gumtree and resell it on ebay

 

[tony84]

You will be hard pushed to find wholesalers on the internet.

The best ones (i have found) dont have an internet presence or if they do its very limited (ie no shop).

Go to your local place where all the wholesalers are.
Go in get some prices (most have a minimum spend of £100).
Come home get on the places your looking to sell for to see if you can compete.
If you can go back and buy the items, if you cant then keep looking.

 

[Matthew_28]

They probably won't do this but see if you can buy the items "sale or return" i.e. see if you can return any items that don't sell or perhaps return them for a negotiated low re-stocking charge. They probably won't do it but it's worth a try. You don't want to be left with dead stock (cash) hence you need to find the items in demand and move with the trends.

There is definately money to be made. Remember Alan Sugar trapesing around with his TV aerials and electricals in the early years? Find what's selling, find a market, find the products cheap enough from a wholesaler (keep an eye out for quality), negotiate the best price with suppliers. Stack em high, flog em cheap.

P.S. I totally agree with Tony's comment with regards to finding some of the better wholesalers off the internet, you would be surprised at some of the gems you can find - how did we do this before the internet? try word of mouth, chap down the pub, newspapers, trade mags, yellow pages (think it's Thomson Local nowadays?).

Cheers
Matt

 

[Digital-Network-services]

You could try Affiliate marketing ... Selling other peoples products..
No stock required ... Check out Clickbank com or Commission Junction

Get yourself some free wordpress hosting and set up a sales blog.

 

[keepitsecret]

we start with £65.00 investment in stock so £500 would of been a great little amount to start off with, just need to make sure you find the right product.

Maybe look a niche markets.. if you are able to supply these market with 'Hard to find' items the profit margins can be rewarding (if you get the buying price right mind!).

but in life as in business its not what you know, its who you know. Always has been and for the forseable future always will be.