Finding products at low trade prices is your first step to becoming a successful reseller.
Once you have sourced products from a wholesale supplier you’re ready to start reselling them to your customers and to start making a return on your investment. But many resellers struggle with this initial step because it can be difficult to know what stock to purchase and resell.
Picking a product that is popular on the high street, like an Apple iPod, may mean you make some quick sales but because so many people resell them it can be tough to secure these at a low wholesale price. And the higher the trade price you buy the item at? The less chance you have of making a high profit margin.
So how do you find a product that isn’t too competitive to resell and a product that you can still resell in large volumes? Here are some ideas of how to boost your sales:
Find Your Market
The key to reselling successfully is finding your market. There are so many products to buy and resell it can be pretty daunting trying to choose one! But some of the most successful resellers choose a niche market to resell in as this can usually yield some of the best return on investment opportunities. So for example, a niche consumer market could be running. If you look at the magazine rack in your local supermarket you’ll see an entire shelf dedicated to running and if you search online you’ll find a host of advice websites on the topic – technique, training guides, athlete interviews and kit reviews are just a few of the articles that will be featured in resources on running. Although this is a niche market, reselling in this arena will give you a much better opportunity to make money than if you were to focus on a product in the mass market – as there will usually be a lot less competition to resale.
Once you have a market to focus on you need to look at possible products you could buy in this field. So in this example you could buy apparel, running equipment, fitness gadgets, trainers or accessories. Identify the available products in your niche and get to know the market well.
Find What’s Selling Now
Once you have established a niche market to sell in, you need to find out what products are selling well in that market and there are a few ways you can do this.
Firstly taking a trip to your local high street store will give you an idea of what stock retailers find valuable. So if you were to focus on reselling running gear, you could head to your nearest running shop and look at what items they have on offer or what items they are making a focal point of. Items that are on aisle ends, in shop windows and on offer are usually the ones that retailers know will be popular with consumers.
If you look out for consumer news you will also find out what products are selling well in your niche area. Try to read publications in your niche to identify what products they are featuring and what products are hotly anticipated within the market.
Looking on sites like eBay and Amazon can also help you to find out what products are selling well in your niche. On auction sites like eBay you can usually search for specific products or types of products so in this case, you could search for ‘Adidas Running Shoes’. Once you have done a search you can look through to see what models are being sold and what price they are being sold at. You can use a few bespoke search options within eBay if you want to identify even more products that are selling well. You could use the completed segments section which will show you recently completed auctions. You could also use the best match search option to search for products in your niche. The ones that come at the top of your search page are the ones you might want to focus on – if they are at the top of a search page it means these products are the ones that show up on an initial search and these are the products that are most visible. And the products that get more views are usually the ones that sell well!
Price Competitively
To maximise your sales you need to price your products competitively. Research other resellers in your market to find out what price they are reselling items at. To price your products competitively you obviously have to secure them at a competitive price too so ensure you do your research on wholesale suppliers and negotiate to get the best deal. To capture the attention of potential customers you should try to list your items at a low price – you can set reserve prices on eBay so you don’t sell your item at a lower price than you want to. But by advertising your item at a lower price than your competitors, you are more likely to entice a customer to want to buy your product and you’ll gain more interest on your adverts and inventory.
