Holidays and Product Sourcing

Here in the UK the summer holidays are in full swing. Families and singles are off on their annual holiday. Now this is where the fun can start, why not combine your summer holiday with a bit of product sourcing ? Now I would guess before you even sold online, and way before any business ideas had come into your head, you were doing a spot of Holiday Product Sourcing.

How many of you when away, spent ages looking for that gift to bring home for a loved one, or spent hours in the market place looking for a new rug for your home, if we are honest I would guess the answer would be most of us. So you see although you did not know it you were doing some product sourcing.

So while you are away this year and in the years to come spend some time looking in the local market places and craft shops. Chat to the people and you never know you might become their sole seller online. A lot of these craft makers love making the items, but sadly they do not have the time to do the selling online, so you could be helping them out.

And of course if you build up a list of contacts, you may need to take some more holidays just to meet with them and see what new items they have for you to sell.

Happy Holiday Product Sourcing

Lavender Bugs

I would like to introduce you to a brand new product we have just sourced called Lavender Bugs. Lavender bugs are a product from the well respected name of Showpony. The owner of Showpony is Emma Henderson and where possible she loves to use organic and fair trade products.

All of  the Showpony products are concept designed based and are substainable, fun and exciting. These vintage fibric bags have a differnt bug printed on each side. All the bags are stuffed full with lavender and have a ribbon loop for hanging with your clothes.

Each bag is roughly 12cm x 12cm and are made with vintage fabric off cuts. These bags would make a wonderful gift for people and in my mind would be good sellers for anyone in the gift market.

The RRP is £14.00 and for this you have two bags packed in a recycled box making this gift very eco-friendly.

The company who make lavender bugs, also have a full range of other products for you to check out.

If you would like to see Showpony’s full range of products then pop along to http://www.showpony.co.uk and on the site there is full details on how to contact them for their wholesale deals.

Now that you have decided that you want to sell on eBay either as a full time or part-time business venture, there will come a time when you have sold all the unwanted items from around your home and the homes of of your family and friends. If this is you and you have sold everything around you, do not give up now. You have seen the system works and that you can make some good money, by selling on eBay.

Please do not let people tell you product sourcing is hard. Well yes it can be hard, but only if you let it be so. To start with if you follow some guidelines and look out for products on a daily basis, you will get a good headstart, and product sourcing will become part of your life, and soon you will see products all over the place, and product sourcing will become part of your life.

A good thing to have with you at all times, is a note book and pen, (or PDA etc), and when you see a product you would like to sell or source, make a note of :
@ Where you saw the product.
@ The Cost of the Product.
@ The maker or importer of the product
@ And any other notes that will help you.

While you are making up your Product Sourcing Book, you can be on the lookout for products in all different places.

1) eBay believe it or not is a very good place to buy and source your products from. You can either buy of eBay.co.uk for resale on the same site, or you can buy off another eBay country site to resell on another eBay site. This is real simple and you can make some good profit this way.

2) Another area where you can go product sourcing, and this will not cost you anything until an item is sold is drop-shippers. Drop shippers keep your stock and once you sell an item, you contact the drop shipper and they send the item to your customer. But please if you go this route check out the drop-shippers and make sure you feel OK using them, and that they are a real company.

3) The third area for product sourcing is craft fairs. When you visit these fairs either at home or when you are on holiday, as you walk around keep your eyes and ears open and think to yourself could I sell this on eBay and if the answer is a yes, chat with the owners and see what happens.

4) The fourth area is Trade Shows, look on sites such as Google, and type on the type of product you want to sell and use Trade Show as a tag and see what comes up. If there is a trade show in your area for the type of product you are thinking of selling, go along and see what is happening, and see all the different types of product on sale to the trade.

5) The last area for quick product sourcing is if you have a friend who owns a “real” shop and they stock items you would like to sell, you can chat with them and see if you can sell for them and be thier online sales arm – for a commission of course. Or they may sell to you at wholesale cost.

The above are just five quick examples of how you can get products in your hands to sell within 24 hours. As you fill out your product sourcing book, you will have many ideas for products, product ranges and different selling examples.

Have fun and enjoy the exciting world of product sourcing.

There is one thing that time and time people ask, where and how do I source products to resell on sites such as eBay. Normally your mind, and the books tell you to look for wholesalers or to look over seas for suppliers. Now while these are all good, and all work, they are not always for the new person, you can spend a lot of money and if you make the wrong choice you could end up losing a lot of money. This is not good.

Time after time as an online reseller we need to think outside the box. We need to think differently from the rest of the world. And as you begin to do this you will find a whole new product sourcing ideas and places jumping out and waving at you, saying come and buy from me.

Today I want you to think local, local as in your home town. The place where you live and work, you know all the places and if you do not it only takes a few phone calls to find out where it is all happening. So lets get started, and see where you can source products locally.

One place you can source products at a local level is your Supermarket, the ones who sell clothing, electrical items etc. Make a habit of going in on a week basis and having a look if they are selling off stock at silly prices. Also “become friends” with the manager and ask them what happens to the stock they cannot sell. And see if you can make an offer. Sometimes it works, or other times they tell you where it is sent.

Make it a habit of going to the local antique shops and get to know the staff, here you can either buy items at cheap prices or you can offer to sell items for them.

The same goes for Charity Shops, go in a few times a week, get to know the staff and either buy items at a steep discount or as you get to know the staff offer to take of their hands items they cannot store or sell. Yes you may have some “junk” but remember you might have some items that will sell well on eBay with a worldwide audience.

Finally go to craft fairs, car boots, yard sales, get to know the other sellers, network with, share information, become their friends. If you do the above on a regular basis you will soon have shops and businesses phoning on a daily basis asking you to take stock off their hands.

As we approach the end of yet another year, one type of event that keeps hitting us in the face is Party Time. From now until the end of the year all we will see and hear about whereever we go or live is those twp words party time. Parties can be for all ages from children, through to teens, through to adults of all ages.

Parties can be fancy dress where you dress up in your favourite super-hero outfit, or doctors and nurses, and the list goes on and on. But as well as fancy dress parties you also have dinner parties, beach parties, 60′s parties where the room, mood and food are all aimed at that period, and the more effort that you put into that party the more fun people will have.

Then of course you have birthday parties, wedding parties, Christmas parties, halloween, thanksgiving, valentines day parties, and then there are school parties, school reunion parties, by now I would hope that you have the picture that parties are and can be a big money earner for eBay sellers and other online sellers. And you can really make some very profits as the profit margins on the Party supplies maket is huge.

Ok so what can I sell. Well to start with you can sell the traditional fancy dress super-hero, doctors and nurses type fancy dress, but why stop there think outside the box a minute. Is there are market for fancy dress for the smaller figure or the larger figure, can you source this or even get items made. One thing a lot of people do not know about this industry is that a lot of these fancy dress outfits are one size, and unless you fall into this size you are either out of luck or try and fit into something that is too big or too small.
So fancy dress is one area.

Another area that you could think about is the area of party ware, Paper plates and napkins, paper cups, tablecloths, banners and ballons, again these items are easy to source, cheap to buy, very easy to post. Keep your eyes and ears open for the up and coming trends. Again think out of the box, if you know some one who makes these items design special items or other to custom make items for people to make their party a big success.

Lastly for this article you could produce a guide on how to run a successful party, in fact you could different guides and sell these on eBay. You could have guides for childrens parties, guides for teenagers parties and then guides for adults. In these guides you could show people how to get the invites out and get people to respond back to you, how to make themed food for the party, party games, and then the best going home goody bags and what to put in them. People will love these and will keep buying more from you, and of course in the guides there is nothing to stop you promoting your other items.

Hope this gives you some tips and ideas on how Party Supplies can make you money.

Are you stuck for ideas on what to sell in your eBay / ecommerce sites ? First have you sold all items from around your home that you no longer need or want ? And have you sold all the items that your family and freinds no longer need and want ? Well if you have and you still want to carry on selling on eBay then you need to start to find some new stock to sell.

One of the best places to do this type of product sourcing is at Trade Shows. Trade shows come in all shapes and sizes, and cover every type of business and niche business that you can think of.

Shows can be as small as in a small hotel room right through to shows like the Spring Fair (gift market) which is help at the NEC in Birmingham and this shows takes place in every hall and a few temp. halls as well, it is massive.

The shows take place from Scotland right down South into Wales and Ireland. You are best to either look in a trade magazine or go onto Google and do a search for trade show in the niche you want or need.

To start with it is best to stay in the UK (or what ever country you live in) and when your business grows then start to look at other countries to source your items. USA, China, India, Hong Kong, and Europe all have massive Trade shows and they are very worth going to when you buisness grows.

Hope this helps.

Todays UK Product Source takes us into the world Metal Pedal Cars. SYOT has one of Europe’s largets ranges of of Metal Pedal cars, Metal pedal planes, and trikes.

For further information please phone SYOT on :

Phone : 0118 973 6688
URL : http://www.SYOT.com
Email : sales@syot.com

(please note pictures will be added once the webiste is back up and running)

Well a funny titile for a massive niche, a niche with many sub-niches in it. When ever you think or do  product sourcing you should always be thinking about your customers and what your customers want and need. Like most people when you think product sourcing you think about products you like and your friends like this is all good, but also think about those products you buy but do not tell your mates. And no I am not talking about those top shelf items you see in newsagents or those naughty shops (but there is a massive industry with loads of money spent there).

No I am talking about those products you buy and hope and pray that no one you know will see you. That hair cream to make your hair thicker, those size 20 underpants, skin creams for achne, I hope you are getting the picture. There is a massive industry out there and if you do your UK product sourcing correct you should and will be able to make money in it. You will need to think out side of the box, go and do research make up UK product sourcing files and note books.

Another bit of information if you do get into this niche please remember to pick a generic name for your shop, your business as these people will not buy from you again if you make them pay a business call extra big clothing store, or the bad skin releif shop, get the picture. They like to buy under cover “James Bond Style” and if they see xyx company on their credit card and the return address is xyz you will have a customer for life.

For example take a look at the listings for acne cream on ebay

Or what about plus sized clothing ?

Hope this helps you see the massive market out there and the profits that can be made with this type of niche.

Uk Product Source –

Fancy Dress Costumes

Well we are at Friday and that is Product Sourcing Day, for this weeks UK Product Source we are looking at the popular trend of Fancy Dress.

Now you may be thinking that the Uk is in recession and there is no money, but we are talking about Fancy Dress here…………. Now some years ago people connected Fancy Dress with kids parties and while that is still the case and my chosen supplier is in fact launching a fabulous brand new range of kids out fits, the growing trend is in the Adult Fancy Dress.

Now for our UK Product Source I have chosen Wicked Costumes, they are one of the UK’s Leading Product Sources for fancy dress and accessories.
Also you may be thinking it is summer time who will be thinking of fancy dress that just happens at Christmas and New Year. Yes and No.

This is where you need to be thinking products and not what you think. Let me give you some ideas :  Stag Nights, Hen Nights, Pop Festivials, Rag Weeks, Club Nights, Student Club Nights, 18th Birthday’s, 21st Birthday’s and the list goes on.

The UK may have money problems but the 18 / 30 age group still have money, they have credit cards and they like to have fun and are willing to spend to have fun.

Wicked Nights have 1,000′s of items in stock and they keep adding to their range, and as I mentioned before they are adding some great new ranges to their kids costumes in August.

Some of the other highlights that make Wicked Nights a great UK Product Source are :

Next Day Delivery
Stunning Art Work
Multiple Sizes
Brilliant Retail Packaging
Wicked foot wear
New lines arriving on a weekly basis

So go on what have you to loose, give them a ring on 01294 314038 and ask to speak with Nicola and Steven or visit the website at http://www.wickedcostumes.co.uk and be part of a great and growing trend and also a market with very good profit margins.

Thanks for reading and hope you enjoyed this week’s UK Product Source

Trade Show -
Mega Show Hong Kong

This week’s Trade Show takes us all the way to Hong Kong for the Mega Show Part 1.

The Mega Show is a great show to go to for Product Sourcing.

The Mega Show is an essential Trade show to go to if you sell and deal in the gift, housewares, premium and toy industries. The show takes place every October and there are over 3,200 suppliers to go and meet.

People also ask me why do we need to go and Product Sourcing and the simple answer is if you do not product source on a regular basis you soon will run out of products and soon after that you will not have a business.

Product Sourcing is a major part of your business and by visiting Trade Shows like Mega Show and others we tell you about will give you loads of ideas.  Now if you are unable to Travel to a Major show around the world, you can also attend more local ones, and if that is not possible you can join a site such as WorldWide Brands this a a great resource for an e-commerce seller.

Anyway back to our Trade Show of the week Mega Show :

Dates :  20th – 23rd October 2009

Hours : 9am – 6pm

Venue : HKCEC

Phone : 00 852 23118216

Website : http://megashow.com/Part1/EN/Index.html

Hope this helps you find some new and exciting products for your business and remember if you need help with your Product Sourcing go along to WorldWide Brands.

Happy Selling