How can I invite eBayers to sell our product ?

[tia_juib]

Hi Everyone,

I am currently looking for eBayer to sell our products in Australia. I'm in the hair care industry and have products that are sold to comsumers and businesses. eBay forum is the only place I know and I'm not sure if this space is the right place. I don't really want to go to expos' or product shows yet because I prefer to do my business online for now. Can anyone help ?

[tia_juib]

Hi k1ooo-slr-sales, thanks for your insight. It's very welcome. 

To address some of your assumptions, I'm only looking for one seller per state and they buy the product from me directly at a reseller price. There are no other level. In a traditional business importers import products from manufactures and sell them to other stores or have their own. I'm doing something similar but using eCommerce to be more cost effective and efficient. 

Our products are original products made in Thailand and have been around for over 40 years. It's consumed often by people and salons. It's just never been seriously marketed overseas because the owner are comfortable with the money they made. A bit like red bull (Krating Daeng) which was originally Thai made also.

I understand there are challenges to eBayers selling online that's why I'm offering a busiess model that allows you to do repeat business. I'm looking to build alliance/partnership so I'm prepared to work with eBayer to ensure they stay visable. 

[tia_juib]

Hi bsal6160, I represent a few manufactures overseas so my role is building distribution arms and maintaining it. I like this space. My eBay account is more for my wife and kids pleasure 🙂 

[digital*ghost]

I won't say drumming up business this way isn't going to work....but as a full-time seller who purchases my stock primarily via online channels, I feel I should say that I would never look twice at a random forum post. 

I'm not saying that just to be critical, or to discourage you, I'm actually saying it in the hopes of providing some insight into the kind of people you're looking for.

The main things that scream out to me from these posts is that I have no information with which to determine the product's appeal, relevance, nor really anything to base a decision to actually contact you. I understand they are hair care products, but that could be anything from cheap scrunchies to designer shampoos, dyes or styling products (including electrical). This is important, especially if the products are not in Australia and are either electrical, or contain ingredients that could be met with customs scrutiny. 

When I make a decision to contact a wholesaler, it's after some thorough research into their products - absolutely never before. For something like haircare products, which people can be really finicky about, I'd want to see some established history of the marketplace performance of those products, testimonials from consumers etc. 

I strongly recommend you set up a website as a platform to provide this kind of information as well as contact details (don't forget to outline your role in th process properly). There are a lot of sites out there that are free but capable of providing much more professional (and transparent) presentation than a forum post here. Then, you can advertise it where appropriate. 

[egglesdtp]

If the hair care products you wish to sell include items such as shampoo and conditioner, be aware that the cost of postage can be prohibitive. 

[tia_juib]

Hi digital*ghost, thanks for your insight. I appreciate hearing your thoughts on the issue.You come accross as an experience eBayer and you have a method to your approach before you decides to buy.  I can see you're an experience eBayer seller. 

To be honest, I was originally after directions, places I could go online to approach potential eBayers who might be interested in reselling our product. I thought I'd start in the forum first and then hopefully someone maybe able to point me to the right direction or maybe refer me to someone they may know I could link up with. 

To give you more information about my business. I have website presence but I'm still refining it. As for our product(s), it's FDA approved in Thailand and we have registered with the Department of Health (NICNAS) here in Australia. I have done some trials here already and its been successful. So I'm confident we'll be able to sell here. We just need to build that layer for distribution.

As for finding a reseller, I have samples available for interested parties. I think there is a process we have to go through together, as you have pointed out earlier, before both of us will be confident with working together. 

[tia_juib]

Hi egglesdtp, thanks for your advice. Yes posting will be huge, hence why I'd like to have established sellers in each state. 

[4green2000]

nicnas.gov.au

[rocket2retro]

Like other I do not want to discourage you but I feel you're entering into a diffficult and already saturated market. An eBay search for hair shampoo brings up 12,330 current listings (admittedly many will be OS).

To have any chance of success I feel you would need a big brand name and be cheaper than what is already available.

This includes factoring in eBay fees and postage. The postage for a bottle of shampoo will be minimum $7.50 & for an over 500gram bottle, probably $13.50. Expect the seller to also be up for around 15% in fees (on both sale price of item & postage).

A small percentage will also end up being refunded by unhappy buyers (no matter how good your product may be) and Australia Post loss/damage.

You would need to know your purchase cost, cost to send the product to onsellers, your expected profit margin, plus the above costs to calculate how viable it would be. I'm guessing that a lot of profit will be eaten up by the abovementioned costs.

As these items are also competing with bricks & mortar stores you need to be competitive on that front as well.

If you read through the boards you'll see how tough eBay sellers are doing it at present. Coupled with some big online sites about to move into Australia, I personally can only see this declining trend continuing as other markets erode eBays once domination off the online space.

I agree searching the eBay site for 'trading assistants' would be the place to begin if you decide to continue.

[chameleon54]

I agree with rocket.

I have been following this thread since it began and racking my brains as to how it could actually succeed on ebay. The only way I could see it working is if the products where targeted at the salon market, sold in bulk and sent by courier. 

The personal use market is highly unlikely to succeed due to the costs rocket mentioned. Any private users who might purchase in bulk are likely to be cheap skates who will go to Aldi when they have a $2.99 special of a known brand and buy in bulk there avoiding freight costs.

To succeed in the salon market, the products would need to be launched with some kind of expensive marketing programme. This could involve full page advertising in salon specific magazines, the printing of large glossy, expensive posters for salon walls, provision of product specific stands to be used in salons, the provision of free samples to salons, provided by trained sales staff who visit the salons to promote the product. They would need branding on thier vehicles and product logo on their shirts etc. This all costs big bucks. If you dont have the financial backing to provide this sort of service and support for your state based sales staff, it is going to be very difficult to launch a new, unknown product onto the Australian market in direct competition to established brands.

The only other way it may succeed in a smaller market is if it has some "special'  factor that the established brands dont have.

Is it made with specialised products used in traditional chinese medicine and if so are they legal to be imported and used in Australia ?  Do the products have some rare herbal extract that cures baldness ( and actually works ? ).   If not, you are going to have extreme difficulty launching a new hair product into a saturated market without MAJOR advertising and promotional dollars to back it up.  

You cant compete on price, because hair products are already regularly sold at a discount through the established supermarket chains who now offer free delivery ( at least in the rural city I live in . ) Simply having a distributor list the products on ebay will see them lost in a sea of similar products, many of which will already have a highly established brand profile.

Sorry for the gloomy prognosis, but I suspect you will need to do a lot of market research and have a considerble bank balance before you commit to this project.

[chameleon54]

Just one other thought. If you dont have the large financial backing to support a national launch of your hair care products, you would need to run a small grass roots campaign. This could involve your state based distributors going to local markets and fairs, direct selling the products to customers. This could then be backed by their ebay stores and low cost social media campaigns. This last bit would be essential for success. 

The important thing is the products would have to actually be very good and provide a better outcome than existing products already on the market. Packaging would also need to look attractive and some small promotional material such as proffesionally printed flyers would also be needed. The most important thing would be your state representatives. They would need to be keen and would need to be provided with support through training and small scale promotional material, by yourself. This approach could actually work, but relies on your little army actually getting out there and promoting the product one on one on your behalf and actively engaging in social media campaigns.

This all takes a lot of work and energy. The degree of success your sales staff achieve would be directly proportional to the energy they put into sales and promotion, so finding vibrant, energetic state representatives would be very important. You wouldnt want to lock up your state representation to the first bored, lonely mum who answered your call for sales staff.