What to Sell????
What to sell is hopefully a question you have asked and
thought about before jumping into the ocean of on-line selling. I have seen
newbies signing up for stores and then coming to the forum to ask what will
they sell, who will get them the products to sell and who will ship them.
Obviously, they aren’t ready to sell themselves. Selling on-line involves YOU
sourcing products to selling, YOU listing them, and if they sell, YOU packaging
them and sending them on their way. I have heard of some sellers only having
1-2 items for sale but a vast supply of them and that is how they earn their
living, but those are rare cases. You also have to be aware that if you have a
goal of selling 60 items a month, you need more than 40 items in your inventory
even if you have some multiple quantities of goods. I would estimate that even
with the best goods at decent prices, to have 60 orders per month you will need
between 600-6000 items inventory if not more. It depends highly on where you
are selling and the kind of promoting of your goods that you are doing.
Some sellers open their stores with 2-10 items to ‘see’ how
they do before ‘wasting’ time listing more. On the eCRATER forum when use the
analogy of the internet being a large ocean and your store and the amount goods
in them as a drop of water if not less than a drop of water. If you want to
sell on line, you have to be found and with only a couple items for the search
engines to find, you are going to be practically invisible. When I first
started selling on eCRATER, as I worked towards listing my first thousand items
I got a sale every couple of weeks and as I passed 2000, 3000, 4000 items in
inventory, etc. my sales got more and more consistent as I was being found by
way of searches and other promoting I was doing. I also was selling a product
that people wanted. That is what you want and need to do. You may want to sell
worn out kids t-shirts for rags, but you will need some kind of hook to get
interest and you shouldn’t expect too much in sales.
So think hard about what you want to sell. This should be
something that you know you about and can find good quantities of, something
that people will want or that they need, and something with a decent price that
will make you a profit. You shouldn’t really be going to all this work just to
make a $1. Minimal profits shouldn’t be your goal at least not in my opinion
because it is possible to make much bigger amounts than that.
In an effort to promote eCRATER and bring in more sales, I
have been pinning items for sale on eCRATER (https://www.pinterest.com/gailetesews/for-sale-at-ecratercom/)
from sellers other than myself on an eCRATER board. As I do this I have become
amazed at the many different things that people will attempt to sell on-line.
Those items that I have pinned all have sellers behind them that have sold
items on eCRATER. Checking out this board will hopefully give you an idea of
the vast amount of items that can be sold.
I’m no expert on where people get their inventory, but I
know some get it from yard/garage sales, thrift stores, want ads, store
markdowns, wholesalers and many other places. I would caution you that it is
considered bad form to ask others where they get their products. That is like
asking someone to give away their trade secrets so someone else can make the
money instead of them. The important thing is, until you are actively selling
and seeing how well you are doing, you don’t want to dump a bundle of money on
stuff that won’t sell. I started out small with my own items being sold and as
I made money I increased my inventory of goods to sell so that currently I have
close to 75-100 boxes of inventory. I can coast for years without buying
another bit of inventory since I have such a backlog of product. There are some
consequences of having so much inventory, which is why many stores having
inventory reduction sales near tax time. But for me, I’m disabled and it is
hard for me to get out and source goods, so knowing I have a backlog is money
in the bank for me.
So what are your interests and what do you want to sell? Is anyone else selling it? Do they seem to be doing well? How are the prices? Do you think you could sell the same thing only better? Think about and research where you can find sources and what it will cost you. Hopefully you can find something to sell that interests you and you already know about. I sell sewing patterns and I see many others selling sewing patterns but at least half of them don’t have a clue what they are doing. Till next time, put that thinking cap on and do some research.
