Friday, October 30, 2015

Made in America and Sold by Americans

Something to think about when you are deciding whether or not you want to sell on line is explained in this post: http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/storyline/wp/2014/09/12/the-postal-service-is-losing-millions-a-year-to-help-you-buy-cheap-stuff-from-china/

As an on-line seller, our biggest competitor is China, even if they don't sell what we sell, their postage discounts, that we as Americans, don't get affect all on line sellers I sell fairly frequently to the UK, Australia and Canada. My postage to send patterns to them is helping subsidize Chinese 'FREE SHIPPING' to the USA for a 99 cent gadget! Currently (October 2015) it runs me between $9-12+ to ship a small package internationally, while the Chinese may have to pay around $1.50! Something is wrong with this picture.

So understand that even if you don't sell to China or sell Chinese products, your sales will be affected by them and their postage discounts lovingly given to them by our Post Office. If you are selling Chinese made goods then you are getting a double whammy. Well you be able to charge enough to cover your costs of getting the goods and the shipping you will have to pay and still make your prices look good next to the Chinese listings of the very same thing? This is one of the reason that it is very important to research what you want to sell before you pay money to get it. If you purchase inventory and for say $5 a widget plus you will need $3 for shipping. Are there Chinese vendors selling the very same thing for $1.25 with FREE shipping? If so and you really want to sell this thing, what do you plan to do to make your products stand out? You will need exemplary titles, listings and photos. You will need A1 customer service which would include shipping within less than 24 hours (most Chinese goods take a week or two to get here). You will also need to promote like crazy.

If you still think that selling on line is an easy way to make money, just try listing a Chinese made good that they are also selling, slap up the listing without running spell check, take a fuzzy photo and sit back and wait for the money to NOT roll in. This is a case of you need to put more and extra effort into your selling.

One of the things I am trying to do is be sure my customers are buying American, and that is nothing against our allies like Canada, the UK, Australia and the EU. Many people want to buy American and you have to tell them that they are.