How to Make Big Money Importing from China
One of the best profitable businesses you can start to generate income with little investment in eCommerce. Ecommerce is growing significantly, and a lot of people are making six figures per month.
If you’re looking for a new business model you can start, you may want to consider eCommerce.
One of my first profitable businesses was importing hot products from china and selling them on Amazon and Shopify. I was able to start and grow my e-commerce businesses which are bringing money monthly.
Before I started, I was asking myself questions that came to my mind:
- How do I get started?
- What products will be profitable?
- How do I avoid low-quality products?
- How do I find a reliable supplier that will give me what I want?
- How do I avoid getting scammed?
- How best can I negotiate with the right supplier?
How to Make Big Money Importing from China
When you’re attempting to start a new business from scratch, you’ll find your mind racing in circles unless you have an absolute path. So, my objective is to create this guide to starting an import & e-commerce business from a clean slate. It’s the step-by-step I would follow to start my business from scratch.
I’ll walk you through every step of the process and give you some remarkable insights into my importation strategy.
Finally, make sure you to follow this step-by-step guide and avoid making unnecessary mistakes. Importing products from China and selling them for profit is a profitable business model. If you follow the wrong step, it may be difficult and complicated to get the result and achieve your goal.
So, without wasting time – here’s how you can start importation from China to launch a successful business
Basic Overview
Understand that it requires taking certain risks to start this business, just like starting any other online business. If you don’t understand what you do, then you can easily waste your money importing the wrong products and using the wrong strategy for your business.
That said – you can create a highly lucrative business with little time and effort if you have a reliable approach.
Follow these steps
Find quality and the right product – you’ll need to spend more time to allow you to brainstorm effectively, researching for best-selling products, and choosing the high-demand product to import and sell for profit. Most newbie importers find this step difficult. However, I have some tools to help with this process.
Find a reliable and good supplier – once you’ve decided on the products to import, you’ll need to buy the products from a supplier. It can take some in-depth research to find the best supplier, but there’s a surefire way to ensure you avoid scams and increase your chances of finding a great supplier.
Test a few samples – you’ll need to place a small sample to test the products you’ll be selling. This is part of the game plan that most people overlook.
Scale it up – once you’ve tested and confirmed your product, you can order for more quantities and make changes to differentiate your products. Later we’ll also learn about branding and expanding your business.
Here are some pitfalls to avoid when starting your import business:
- Don’t buy in large quantities until you have their samples and you’re satisfied with them.
- Don’t let any supplier fool you by telling you they can’t ship small sample orders. They’re just trying to make you fall into their trap.
- Use only Trade Assurance or PayPal for the first three months for your transactions with your supplier. It eliminates so many risks.
- Don’t purchase products from companies that do not accept Trade Assurance or PayPal payments.
- Don’t buy fake and low-quality products. It’s not that you won’t make money; it’s just the wrong way to start a legitimate business.
- Don’t give these suppliers your contact, mostly primary email. They will spam your email with different offers that you don’t need.
The above points are crucial; make sure you follow them when searching or ordering for your product.
The Three Steps To Importing From China And Make Money
Step one – Find a high-demand product to import and sell
Finding a top-demand product is where many people get stuck. If you don’t know what you’re doing, it’s easy to get lost along the line. The good news is that many tools can help you find the right products to sell.
However, first, let me share a brief story of how I discovered this excellent method.
When I started initially, I went straight for products like bags, shoes, wallets, purses that are not quality.
It affects my business, but after discovering that most of the product was not quality, I stop selling them. I didn’t want to build my business selling product that has no value to the buyers.
So, I recommend that you avoid products that are not quality at all cost, no matter the price.
So, if you’re thinking of selling these types of product simply because you can get them at a cheaper rate, your business won’t last.
The Best Way:
Since I was already selling products online successfully, However, I still found it challenging to find the right products to market. I had quite a few disappointments before things started making sense.
Here are some terrible products I imported in the past:
Fragile – I bought about 20 of these, and no one bought them. This type of product always has some external problems. No one wants to receive a broken product.
Lesson learned: Avoid products that can easily break during shipping.
Tight-fitting clothes and shoes – I bought 20 units of tight-fitting clothes and shipped them to a customer, but five units were returned. The dress looks fancy, but it requires a specific body type, which needs to be tried on before the customer buys. I didn’t make profits from the sale.
Lesson learned: Avoid buying products that are a specific body type.
The Breakthrough
After hundreds of hours of researching for the perfect product with no success, I thought of quitting the business. I had tried so hard to find the right product – one that would solve all my problems at an instant. However, I was merely losing my money.
After many hours of thinking, I decided to give it one more shot. I knew that this business was the right one for me, but I wasn’t getting it right. So, I decided to change my strategy.
Up until that point, I had tried to find hot-selling products in the way most entrepreneurs do. I was looking for cheap products that were below the selling price, and that wasn’t working well for me.
What I noticed is that sourcing product is not the challenging part. The challenging part is finding products that you can consistently sell online. Once I understood the process,
I started to focus on what people were buying. Instead of searching for cheap products to import from china, I was now searching for products with high demand. So guess what? It worked for me.
The first product that successfully worked for me was Hoodie, which was cheap and easy to differentiate. From there, I sold Bluetooth Speaker, and Teeth Whitening Kit – and I was making a killing from them.
How To Find your First Hot Product To Sell
As a beginner, you’ll probably sell some random products for a while, until you eventually see the best product that will change your story.
This product will make you an influential entrepreneur, and from there, you can expand your brand.
For me, my first “killer” product is health and fitness. I stumbled over the product and made a few sales, as they seemed quite popular. Immediately after I ran out of stock, I quickly 3x my order.
I stopped selling other products and dedicated all my time to my newfound love. I was selling up to 20 units per day and making some cool money.
As I made more sales, my business relationship with my supplier kept increasing, and he kept making my life better by giving me huge discounts. It seemed as if I was on top of the world, and I easily outran my competitors.
The amazing part is that my supplier took the responsibility of handling shipping and returns.
Now that you understand some of the challenges of importing products from China let’s focus on the crucial aspect.
How to find profitable products to sell
Finding hot-selling products to import and sell comes down to 3 easy steps:
Brainstorm>>>>>Market research>>>> Choose
So, let’s begin
Brainstorming Products
Your goal is to find the perfect supplier for any product you will be selling; only then can you focus on growing your business rather than on customers and shipping. It’s not a bed of roses, but if you follow the steps below, you will increase your chances of finding an excellent supplier and product.
Where and How to find suppliers
The most recommended platform to find suppliers is undoubtedly Alibaba. Here you will find many that are reliable, different product options and information on the import of each.
It is possible to filter the results of suppliers according to their level of reliability, the guarantee of their service, customer comments, and of course, certifications that complement their status.
Once you have done this, then you must start talking to different suppliers and make samples of the products you want to purchase. If you use the Alibaba platform, we recommend that you use filters to find the most suitable suppliers.
Don’t fall into the traps of scam sites like Doba, Volusion, or other websites that promise to find you reliable suppliers. I made the mistake of using these sites to search for trustworthy suppliers and wasted hundreds of dollars for information of no value. Trust me and stay away from these sites.
With Alibaba, you’ll be considering only Gold members. I don’t care about the incredible deals you get from non-gold members or how many certifications they have. Don’t just patronise non-gold members. By following this simple rule, you can avoid bad suppliers and rippers. Any other certifications are just mere showoffs.
Your goal is to find a supplier that will provide cheap samples, accept PayPal payments, and respond to your messages quickly.
So, quickly signup on to Alibaba, as you’ll use it frequently while researching products to know if they will be profitable.
Where and How to Find Products
To get the best products in china, you need to consider the following:
Products need to be small and light – you need to trust me on this; you don’t want to face the problem of shipping furniture, and kitchen “stuff” around the world. You want something that is going to be cost-effective when shipping because shipping is going to suck your profit margin.
The product needs to be unique and simple – what I mean here is that you want to import something easy to manufacture with relatively small error. Most of these factories do not have the highest quality equipment to produce what you want. So, it’s better to go for products with a small margin error that won’t chase away your customers.
Keep it simple – $8 – 150 range. It becomes tasking if you’re selling items that are above this price range. High-ticket products are hard to ship, take time to sell, and require more top-quality control. Cheap products tend to sell more, especially if the products you sell are high-in-demand products. You can make up to 800% profit with these Chinese products.
Buy high-in-demand products: You need to find items that have regular customers. I’m sure there’s much money to be made in selling x-mass kinds of stuff and winter clothes from Asia, but it’s going to be seasonal, and you may end up not selling them at all sometimes.
Other than that, you’re free to do whatever comes to your mind.
What I would do is to visit some popular sites and check what they have.
Alibaba – you should already know about this site. I often use this site to see items that are promoted, and I use other websites to make comparison such as Aliexpress. For example, right now there’s a new company that sells LED light bulbs for $2.00 per unit. Even better, they accept escrow and have onsite inspections from Alibaba. I can head over to Amazon and see the same bulbs selling for at least $12, a very reasonable margin.
eBay – check out eBay listings to see what others are offering. I often use eBay auction descriptions also to learn more about a particular product.
Amazon – I often use this page to check out all the hot-selling products. I scout through all the categories to find products that many importers don’t import. I try to find weird kinds of stuff like skateboard parts, Vaporizers and E-Cigarettes and compare them to the ones in Alibaba.
Other essential tools include Shopzilla, Mysimon Top Searches, and Kaboodle hot picks.
Just keep on searching on these sites and comparing it against what you can find from Alibaba. It may take some time, but eventually, you will learn what works for you and start seeing great products to import.
The next step is to start talking to your suppliers and getting samples from them. You don’t have to worry about their speaking English, some speak fluently.
Identify Best Suppliers
Now that you’ve finally found your dream product, we can start filtering suppliers and start contacting the ones that look promising.
How do I do this?
I would search for Vaporizers and E-Cigarettes on Alibaba using the correct filters – you should already be doing this before to check the products you want. At this point, we’d like to tailor our search to suppliers only instead of products. I usually start filtering by ticking “Gold Supplier” and adding “Onsite Checked,” “Escrow” and “Assessed Supplier” to get at most 30 suppliers. Your goal should be to narrow your searches down to the finest suppliers on Alibaba.
Searching for products – Now that you’ve found one, it’s time to contact the supplier and get some more information. I usually ask about the minimum order quantity, shipping policies, returns, sample policy, price list, specifications, and just anything that will make my life easier.
Samples – once you have discussed with a supplier, it’s time to put in some small orders to get samples shipped to you. I usually get samples from at least three suppliers I am considering, but never just one. Take your time to evaluate the samples and note the delivery time, costs, damage, and what have you.
Another place to search for a product is Aliexpress.It is like Alibaba, and there are millions of products there with reliable suppliers.
Step Two – Selling Your Product through E-commerce Platforms
Here comes the critical part, where you must make the tough decision about your inventory. For me, I’d certainly spend a few bucks to buy some of my products to test the system. For newbies, starting dropshipping with a new supplier is not advisable. Just test things out to fully understand the system, and within a few days, you should start making sales.
As a newbie, you can use Amazon and eBay to start selling. But I strongly recommend starting selling on Amazon FBA.
Amazon FBA
Selling on Amazon is one of the best steps you can take when it comes to starting eCommerce.
I know a lot of people who are making 100k per month selling on Amazon.Amazon makes it easy for sellers to sell their product without any inventory. They did all the dirty job for you.
If you know how to find a quality product and you can ship it to Amazon, then you can make more money than any types of business.
It’s quite easy to set up these systems –look at what other top sellers are doing and improve on them.
When you start getting orders, ensure you ship out products immediately. You don’t want to start your business by shipping products late.
Once you’ve tested the system for a month or two and fully mastered it, you can decide to get into drop shipping, which is another gold mine.
Drop-Shipping
If you don’t know, dropshipping is a method where products are sold without any inventory, as distributors deliver the product directly to the end customer. Thus, the business risk is very low for the seller because there is no fixed capital in stock, i.e., the seller does not have to buy a product, store and wait for a buyer to come up (he buys knowing his end customer already and passes it on the goods directly to him).
There is no minimum quantity of products per order, and the initial cost is affordable. It is not only those who learn to import from China that practice Drop Shipping; Any importer, regardless of country of origin, uses this technique.
If dropshipping interests you, here is one of the best training that teaches you how to dropship on Shopify.
Step Three – Scale it up
Now comes the last and most crucial part – scaling it up. You’d want to add more products to your eBay, Amazon and maybe Shopify (for drop shipping). You’d also want to start sending out promotional materials with your shipments, start advertising and even brand your business. With this strategy, you can begin to see up to 40- 50 orders per day.
Here are some marketing tips to increase your sales and revenue.
Facebook Page – Facebook has the option of creating a page with the same name as your online store. In addition to being free, your page has management tools, teaches you how to make posts of various attractive formats, can be integrated with Instagram (you make a single post, which will automatically appear on your Facebook page), offers an option to embed a store on the page itself or refer the customer to your site at the time of purchase.
Listing on other sales platforms – As I made more sales, I thought it wise to build an eCommerce store to expand my e-commerce business.
Branding – Branding is an essential aspect of your business. You have to find a unique brand name that tells your customers what you are selling, and it will undoubtedly yield results over time. Brainstorming brand names is easy, and some sites can help you. An example is a naming force.
Importing From China: Conclusion
Now that you know the rudiments of importing from China, it’s time to take massive action by following what you have read and digested. Feel free to drop comments about what you think of this post.
There are lots of opportunities in this business, and if you’re ready to take the challenge, you can build a successful and profitable business by importing products from China.
If you have any questions about importing from China, kindly let me know from your comment.
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