If you want to know how to make money with Alibaba and start your own online business then you’re in the right place:

Yes it can be scary, difficult, frustrating, and down right painful, but if you follow our guide and stick to it, you will reap all the rewards and then some…

That’s why the first thing we’re going to talk about is how to find your first product. Then you’re going to learn how to negotiate prices, where to sell the products, and finally the best marketing strategies!

Here’s What We’re Covering:

Step 1: Look for Product Ideas Everywhere

The first thing you need to do is identify products you want to sell, there are a lot ways you can do this, and the hardest part is usually coming up with ideas to research. I usually do the following.

  1. Ask people what problems they are having Facebook and reddit are both great places for this, usually I just ask people questions about what things they use in their everyday lives that they have trouble with or could use improvement. Check out this reddit post here,.
  2. Keep a notebook where I jot down things that I see everyday that I think are cool or interesting.
  3. Look through Amazon Best Sellers and Ebay Popular to see if you can piggyback (we’ll define this later) or improve a product.
  4. Try to solve problems that you have. The most obvious problems are hard to solve because you have been dealing with them forever, so next time something seems a bit annoying or dumb  take a second and think if there is a way to improve it.

These are the kinds of items we’re looking forโ€ฆ.

Light weight: This is important because it saves on shipping charges from China and if you do have to deal with a return for some reason it will not kill you to ship stuff back, the last thing you want is to ship something heavy all over the country.

Simple: You want an itme with a large margin for error. If there is a defect in the product ideally you should still be able to sell it. That is why we do not do electronics, a small defect with electronics and the whole product is worthless.

Price Between $15 – $200: This is where the majority of the world purchases products.This is the โ€˜middle classโ€™ of products and the middle class is what we are after.

Check Out Our 20 In Demand Product Ideas for 2020!

Step 2: Research All Your Product Ideas

Terapeak is an awesome tool for identifying products on eBay and Amazon. Itโ€™s also simple to use, all you need to do is input the product you want to research and TeraPeak will give you some sweet analytics. Like sell through ratio, sales volume, and the trend over 30, 60 and 90 days.

Another awesome tool is  Camel Camel Camel. CCC is a free tool that allows you to track pricing trends from Amazon over time so that you can easily see whether a product is trending up or down. Another great thing about CCC is you can get an idea of where to price your product in order to be competitive.

Here is a screenshot of MorphSuits, I use to sell a ton of these:

screenshot of morphsuits

As you can see the price is trending down, so I would not do this product now. When you see a chart like this it usually means there are too many sellers now and the market has been oversaturated.

Step 3: Use Alibaba to Search for Manufacturers

Alibaba is without a doubt the holy grail of Chinese bulk wholesale factories. The Chinese suppliers that are listed on there are either (A) Serious Factories or (B) Serious Scammers. Below I am going to show you, step by step, how to vet suppliers and make sure you are not dealing with a scammer.

There are basically two ways you can search for wholesale suppliers on Alibaba.

1. Search Engine

You can search through their search engine to do this. Simply type in the product that you are looking for.

alibaba-search-engine

Once you have done this, look just above the first product and you will see five boxes. Check the following:

  • Gold Supplier
  • On Site Check
  • Assessed supplier
  • Escrow
alibaba-search-engine

The reason we check these boxes is to begin weeding out the good from the bad. Typically if they accept all four they are pretty legit supplier!

Be Safe on Alibaba: Easily Avoid Scams, Middle-men, and Fraud

**Alert**

Something that bothers me is when our readers lose money or have bad experiences using Alibaba or Aliexpress. I want to try and put an end to that. That’s why we partnered with JungleScout to put together a supplier/manufacturer database to help you find the right factory for your products. If you want to check it out, it’s right here.


Check Out The Supplier Database

First Message with an Alibaba Supplier

The first contact with a Chinese wholesale supplier is VERY important, Your objectives are:

  1. Sound serious
  2. Donโ€™t sound like an amateur
  3. Make a good first impression

So how do we do this?

Here is a template I use when contacting Alibaba wholesale suppliers for the first time:

Hello,

My name is ______. I am a purchasing agent for XYZ corp. We are very interested in learning more about your company and itโ€™s production capabilities. If you could send us more info as well as your product catalogs and MOQ requirements we would greatly appreciate it.

We look forward to speaking with you.

Sincerely,

_________

Build Slowly, Gradually Increase Orders!

Of course you can tweak this to fit your needs, but this is a good start.

DO NOT buy in bulk from China immediately, that is the quickest way to get screwed. What we want to do is buy a few samples, sell them, get feed back, and then move to the next step.

Building your importing business gradually and methodically will ensure that you stay in business and are able to grow quickly later on.  Here is the process from start to finish:

workflow-working-with-alibaba

Lower the Minimum Order Quantity

The first thing that your Chinese wholesale supplier is going to ask is how many pieces you want to order. This is where the โ€˜fake it till you make itโ€™ phrase is VERY important. I know it might be hard and uncomfortable for some, but if you do not play this correctly no one will want to work with you. Normally their response will be to ask how much you are selling per month or how many pieces you would like to buy. Below is a great example of an email one of our students (Daniel) and I worked on when we were recently in China together.

***

Dear Sun,

As I am sure you can understand, we cannot divulge secretive information like monthly sales volume. Based on what you have told me, your volume is enough for us to be interested in your factory, especially given your broad range of products and your focus on quality control.

However, my boss is not willing to switch accounts to any new supplier until we prove things out by moving slowly. The steps he would like to follow are:

1. We test a normal and high capacity cartridge internally in our office

2. We test on a broader scale with 100 units, preferably with a different printer line

3. We move to 1,000 units to test happiness with customers in our many channels of distribution

4. Assuming all goes well, we go to 5,000-10,000 units and really begin to migrate to your factory fully for that line

***

Hook, line, and sinker.

This factory replied back that they were more than willing to work with Daniel andย he was able to get any MOQ (minimum order quantity) he wanted becauseย theyย neededย โ€˜prove themselvesโ€™ toย him.

Step 4: Coordinate the Shipping from the Alibaba Supplier

One of the biggest hang-ups and mistakes people make importing from China wholesale is trying to learn everything about shipping. I have been working in importing for 8 years and I definitely do not know everything and, to be honest, I don’t want to know everything.

Shipping laws and regulations change all the time and to keep up with it is a full time job  itself. So… DO NOT try to learn it all or you will drive yourself crazy and worse, you’ll scare yourself out of ever sending a shipment.

Personally, I use the following companies:

DHL, FedEx, UPS, TNT, Kerry Express, Sure Freight.

When you use any one of the above companies, they will take care of almost everything. With DHL and FedEx, you might have them contact you about filling out some forms when clearing customs, but most everything else is covered.

Someone like Sure Freight will take care of everything. You literally do not have to worry about a thing and they will make sure that your product gets from point A to point B without a hiccup. Also, when they give you a shipping quote it will include all taxes and duties, so you are getting everything all in one price.

In the beginning a lot of people ship by Air, but you can also do it by Seaโ€“it just takes a bit longer. There are advantages and disadvantages to both.

How to Quickly Find Private Label Manufacturers

How to Estimate the Shipping Cost

I do the following:

  • Go to DHL.com and use their shipping and rate quote tool
screenshot of DHL shipping rate quote
  • After Clicking on the โ€˜Get Rate and Time Quoteโ€™ button you will be taken to this screen:
screenshot DHL shipping feature
  • Next fill out the form. You will need a pick up and drop off zip code as well as the size and weight of each of your packages. Press the โ€˜Searchโ€™ button and you should get something like this.
dhl screenshot

DHL will give you different shipping options and this is a good baseline for comparing against other companies and your factory (you can also ask your factory to ship, they sometimes get really good deals).

If you get an error message like this:

dhl error messages screenshot

This is DHL telling you one of two things.

1. Your box is too big for the weight that you are shipping, or

2. This is NOT a good product because it is too big!!

You should do the exact same process on Fedexโ€™s website as well as World Freight Rates website. None of these are exact quotes, but they at least give you an idea of where you are at with shipping.

**Alert**


Check Out The Supplier Database

3 Alibaba Shipping Hacks You Need to Know

  1. Play with the dates. Importing is like airline tickets, prices change with days and seasons, so mess around with the dates of shipping.
  2. Remove excess packaging. When shipping by air you are being charged by weight and size, so ask the factory to remove anything that is not needed in the packaging.
  3. Remove any unnecessary pieces. I once cut my shipping cost by 43% on a product when I realized the factory was including mounting brackets inside that NONE of my customers were using.

Step 5: Coordinate Product Inspections

Once you start buying in bulk from china and sending more money to your supplier you are going to want to start getting inspections done for your shipments.

Inspection companies will go through the packaged goods ready to ship and check the packaging and the product. Typically inspection companies will cost anywhere from $250 – $300 for one inspector for one day.

However, it is well worth the cost because they will go through and tell you everything about your shipment and send you a very detailed report about the minor or major flaws that your shipment may or may not have. I personally like the following companies:

V-Trust

Asia Inspection

SGS Group

All three of these companies do a great job, charge more or less the same, and will send you a very detailed report about your shipment.

Help your Inspection Company be Awesome

Inspection companies will check your wholesale order top to bottom, but in the end you should know exactly what you need.

Send your inspection company the following info:

  • Product specs
  • Material makeup
  • Pantone colors

Really any and all info that you have about the product. This will make their job way easier and ensure that you get exactly what you want.

That’s it for the importing…

Now we have to look at how to sell the products you decided to buy.

Step 6: Sell Your Products

Sign up For an Amazon Account

Most people already know how to use Amazon to some degree. You have probably bought something on there at some point and thus probably already have an account. If you click under โ€˜Accountsโ€™ you will see a button that says โ€˜My Seller Accountโ€™, click on that and it will take you to this page:

amazon-services-screenshot

Here you have two choices:
(1) sell as a professional or (2) sell as an individual.

sell online amazon

The first thing I would suggest checking is what category your product is listed under.

“Sell as a professional” has ten more categories than “sell as an individual” has. However, individual is cheaper but you can only sell up to 40 products a month under it. Do not stress about this too much as you can always change it later.

Once you do this you will have to do a few things.

  1. Enter Personal Info
  2. Enter a credit card number
  3. Verify your mobile number
  4. Complete registration

The next thing you want to do is begin adding your products. To add products all you need to do is click on inventory and โ€˜add a productโ€™.

amazon_add_aproduct

When you click on โ€˜Add a Productโ€™ you have two options. One is to piggyback on an already existing listing, the other is to create a new product.

If you choose to piggyback on a listing, you do not have to do much other than type in the type of product into the catalog, pick your product and then add the amount that you have, the dates you want to sell, and your price for the product.

You will get this form once you choose a product to piggyback on:

amazon-product-form

Once you fill out this little bad boy and press โ€˜nextโ€™ your product is live on Amazon! Simple as it could be.

If you want to create your own product listing you will have to jump through a few more hoops in order to get your product up, but nothing too crazy.

If you want more insight into every step needed to sell on Amazon then check out the post below:

The Step by Step Guide to Start an Amazon Business from Scratch

Use Amazon Sponsored Ads

They make your product way more visible and the ROI on them is great.

Some features of Amazon ads:
  • Returns based on keywords
  • Only pay when someone clicks
  • Ad shows under ‘related products’ (check this out below)
Why use Sponsored Ads?
  • Improve product visibility with an opportunity to get listings on page 1 of Amazon search results
  • Deliver highly relevant advertisements targeted to customer searches
  • Measure return on investment and optimize advertising spend
So how does it work??? Simpleโ€ฆ
  • Select your products, enter keywords and a maximum bid.
  • Select your Targeting Type:
  • Automatic Targeting – Amazon targets all relevant customer searches based on your product information.
  • Manual Targeting – Your advertisements are targeted based on the keywords you choose.
  • You appear alongside search results if you own the the Amazon Buy Box for your product.
  • Shoppers who click are taken to the detail page where your product is offered.
  • You pay only if your ad is clicked. Applicable Selling on Amazon fees will apply.
  • Complete end-to-end metrics are available.

Here I searched for โ€˜Yoga Matsโ€™. Once I clicked on a mat I liked a bunch of listings came up at the bottom of the page for similar products. These are โ€˜sponsored productsโ€™ and users are much more likely to click one of the below suggestions than they are to go back to the main page and look at the first search results.

yoga-mats-products-amazon

Run Facebook Ads

Facebook ads are awesome, I rarely use anything but them. Their targeting is far more effective than almost any other tool on the market and Facebook knows everything that its users doโ€“thus you are able to  target exactly who you are looking for.

There are a million things you can do with Facebook ads but here we are focused on one thing and one thing only, โ€˜How to make moneyโ€™. Because money makes us happy and buys us nice things.

So after you have your product listed on Amazon and you are ready to send an ad to it, follow these 5 easy steps below.

1. Click here and click on โ€˜Create Adsโ€™

facebook-create-ads

2. Click on the Objective for your campaign

This really depends on what you’re after, but in our case we are going to be looking to get โ€˜Website Clicksโ€™ because we will not be able to implement our own tracking pixel on Amazon.com.

facebook-ads-screenshot

3. This will take you to this page and all you need to do is enter the URL you are trying to direct people to.

facebook-advertisement-add-url

4. After you enter your URL you will be taken to this page, and this is where the fun really begins.

FB_ClicktoWebstite_page

On this page we are going to focus on a  few things.

  • How old is our audience?
  • What gender are they?
  • Where are they from?
  • What are they interested in?

But what we are really focused on is this little guy here:

audience definition facebook ads

So as you can see the little arrow thingy is in the green, which is actually BADโ€ฆ We want it in the red. We want really, really specific customers, because those are the ones that convert the best.

For example we do not want the girl that just likes โ€˜Yogaโ€™ we want the girl that likes โ€˜Bikram Yogaโ€™ or โ€˜Brooks Yoga Studioโ€™ because these are the people who are actually doing yoga and practicing on a regular basis.

As you can see below, we are starting to get more definedโ€“and the more specific we get the better results we will see.

FB Clicktowebsite specific yoga

Here I am targeting specific types of yoga. In the next ad set I might target specific yoga studio pages, or yoga mat companies and so on. Also, you can see above my little โ€˜speedometerโ€™ is more in the middle now and the more specific I get the more defined my audience will be.

5. Pick your spending

Once you have a couple ads you feel good about pick your budget. Personally I would start off with a bigger number $150 -$250 for the day so you can test very quickly which ones are working and which ones are not.

Above is a VERY beginners intro into Facebook ads, once you get better at them you can start using more powerful tools like Custom Audiences, Power Editor, Sumome.com, and so on.

FB_pick_your_spending

By door to door sales I mean Facebook, Craigslist, or whatever way you can sell. Do not be too proud to ask for money. That is what business is all about.

While at Canton Fair this year Will and I took a group of 25 people and we had a lot of people saying they were having trouble navigating the waters of Amazon, so I went about showing them how I would do it. First thing I did was post this ad on my Facebook.

screenshot-edmund_james_FBpost

ehhhโ€ฆ 9 likes, not really what I was hoping for, but I was not going to be detoured so I kept on keeping on. Next I went into our Jumpstart Facebook group and posted the same ad and got a few more sales and likes.

screenshot-edmund_james_FB_likes

Use Reddit to Create Demand

Next I went to reddit, because I had a feeling I could make some magic happen over there.

but to no avail, my fellow redditors were not picking up what I was putting down. ๐Ÿ™

reddit_post

But thatโ€™s ok, I still had more tricks up my sleeve, I started to hit up friends directly in my network that I knew would be interested in my new product.

Reach Out to Your Personal Network

text-message-screenshot

HOOK

text-message-screenshot

LINE!!!!!!

screenshot-text-message

AND SINKER!!!!! BOOM!

I ended up selling 40 of these Alibaba desk organizers, I negotiated with the Chinese supplier and got them for $7 a piece and sold them for between $20 and $30 each.

I used this super simple spread sheet I made in Excel to keep track of my sales:

screenshot-excel-file-sales-report

Most of the bulk items that I imported were sold in my home town so I was able to put them into my suitcase for free shipping. The rest cost me around $280 to ship. I used a bunch of different companies to get quotes and that was the best I could find on international freight.

Wrapping This Up…

All in all I probably spent about 12hrs of hard work on this, so if I spend about 24 hours a week on this I could probably get WAY more efficient. But worst worst case scenario I make an extra $1,025 on this a week, which is $4,100 a month and could be done on my time off on the weekends.

It’s possible to make money with Alibaba, the hardest part is starting.

Thanks a lot for reading!

Author

Avatar for Edmund Lowman
Edmund Lowman

Edmund Lowman is a former rockstar turned entrepreneur. He's started several successful companies including Kekai Express. He also likes doing anything that he might get hurt doing and has an extremely hard time sitting still for more than 5 minutes...

92 comments add your comment

  1. Guys thank you very much for all the information you provide !!! Really helpful, to the point and no BS ๐Ÿ™‚ There is out there a lot of trainers who charge a lot and do not give even half of the information you offer for free, and then you realize that u just wasted your money and time for basic things.

    • Hey Marina, thank you so much for reaching out and reading the article! You’re absolutely right and we love giving away as much information as possible. If you run into any trouble or have any questions at all, don’t hesitate to email us.

  2. Very good job. Normaly anybody first wants to get some money out of you for such good advice. Thanks.

  3. Import from Alibaba
    Step1: Message all possible supplier for your product requirement
    Step2: Evaluate and Filter the supplier based on Parameters
    Step3: Negotiate Price and Terms and Place the order
    Step4: Transfer the Deposit so they can start the production
    Step5: Hire inspection Agency or Import agent to Inspect the cargo
    Step6: After all satisfactory result Pay the balance and Ask the supplier to Export the goods
    Step7: Once Shipment arrives Customs Clear the goods and Release the cargo after paying the Duties and taxes.
    Importing can be time consuming and tedious; to make it hassle free and risk free always take the help of Professional Import Agent to help you in this entire process. Once you conclude the supplier you can forward the same to a Professional Agent who will then give you final estimate costing of import making it easy for you to make a final decision on purchase plan.

  4. In shipping details what to enter in alibaba.com while ordering,also where to mention DHL or Fedex on alibaba.com page

    • Amazon can and will warehouse your product for you. And they will ship it to your customer at no cost to you. That’s what allows you to have prime shipping on your product listings.

        • Hey zaid, when you create a product listing on Amazon you can select “fulfilled by amazon”. Then they give you shipping labels you can print out to use so you can send your products to them. Afterwards they handle the rest.

  5. Wow, Edmund you might have changed my life with this, thank you and God bless you.

  6. Because I’m still at the planning stage, I have many questions and fears. Would you please help me to get started. To let you know, I’m from Yemen and because of that I can’t resell on Amazon, and I can do it on eBay. The second thing, can I deal with the shipping from China to the buyers without leaving my country?

    By the way, your words are very useful and inspiring.

  7. Hi, thanks for the wonderful article – explains the process from start to finish! Really helpful! I have one question – I’m new at Alibaba and since I only have a very small business at the moment, I go to the Alibaba Wholesale market (low MOQ). In your article, you mentioned hiring inspectors when your orders get bigger. Does that mean I won’t need inspection at this time? Are the suppliers on the Wholesale market more or less certified/guaranteed by Alibaba? Thanks for your reply!

    • In the short term, with low MOQ, you could probably just order one of your own units and inspect it yourself. It won’t be as thorough as the inspection company, I think, but that could prove cost effective for you when you’re starting out.

  8. Hi, thanks for the blog. I would like to know; do you have to received the order first before shipping to your buyer or everything would be processed online without you dealing with the goods physically?

    Hoping to read back at your earliest convenience.

    Regards

  9. Who is shipping the product to the customer? Is it you or the supplier? How does this work? thanks

    • Amazon. You have all your units shipped to Amazon fulfillment centers and they take care of the packing and shipping.

  10. This is an awesome tip for importation, but how much do one really need to start up this business.

  11. The take away is: have a friend who will buy $600 dollars worth of merchandise sight unseen, with no other product information other than your assurance that you think the product is “awesome.”

    • Sounds like the friend is running a hotel successfully and bought 20 units (a REALLY small order, considering the average size of a hotel) for testing. This was nothing but a beta test to try out consumer response.

  12. Amazing. Would I be able to try out get started with this kind of business living in Ireland but exporting from china? Is that possible?

  13. This was a great read! Very useful and practical information, thanks man.

    “here we are focused on one thing and one thing only, โ€˜How to make moneyโ€™. Because money makes us happy and buys us nice things.”

    Lol true, true.

  14. hi Edmund, Thanks for the post. do you order from china and ship to your buyer directly from china or do you ship to yourself before you ship to your buyers? Best Regards

    • I ship to Vancouver, Canada and then pick up by bicycle with trailer and 2-3 months later (weather dependent ) return to Goshen, New York where I custom package all orders, paid for or not, and then send first class to all buyers. While I have lost well over my own self worth and all hope doing business this way, I am 100 percent confident I will someday make enough to purchase a free Big Mac. It’s not an easy life; but at least it’s a horrible one. Thank goodness I enjoy warm, bacteria tainted water and moldy, mostly eaten Papa Johns Pizza crusts salvaged from yesterday’s garbage next door to my tarp covered barrel of a home. Thanks for reaching out to me, I look forward to sharing my success.

  15. Great article!.I cant agree with it more, im from China,i have been sending goods to some other counties since 2011.What the author wrote dose be right,looks like you are a chinese.I sent a lot of goods to many midest and africa countries ,but nothing to europe, if so what should pay attension to?
    thank you

    • Hi, Thanks for the post. do you order from china and ship to Africa? do you ship to your buyer directly from china or do you ship to yourself before you ship to your buyers? Best Regards

  16. How do you choose a price to sell your product for? Also does Alibaba pack each individual product or would I have buy packages to sell my products in from a separate supplier? To sell to a buyer when I’m selling online.

  17. Great information! I’m confused regarding the facebook audience selection, do you mean by audience as my fb friends? or the other non friend users?
    Also if you could explain more how enhance selection for specific buyers.

    Thank alot

  18. Great article. Although your First Contact email would be much more professional if you spelled Sincerely correctly. I’m not being a wiseass, just trying to help anyone who may copy/paste the note. ๐Ÿ™‚

    • Doesn’t really matter. I work at an import department and 90% of chinese “sales managers”, as they call themselves, don’t speak terrible english. Plus the fact that i’m not a native English speaker myself eighter, i’ve had no problem reaching targets etcetera.

  19. Hey Guys,
    Loved the article! I could use a little more information on the shipping process. I’m trying to get some samples shipped for products that cost ~$40. They are quoting me $300 for air freight which seems high. How can I schedule the shipping myself so that I can choose the dates/prices when they are the ones shipping the product to me? Any help you could provide would be much appreciated!

  20. Hi. Awesome article thanks. Quick question.
    When you import from China, do you firstly ship the product to yourself and then only once you received the physical goods, do you ship to the end customer (once they have ordered over amazon)?
    Or do you mainly wait for Amazon orders to come in and then get the supplier to ship directly to your customer?

    • If you’re buying in bulk, I think the only option that would make sense is to ship the products to yourself and then sell it to customers because you can’t ship to amazon directly as it may create conflict

      • You’re absolutely right Nagendra. At first ship the products to yourself, learn what the Amazon warehouses are looking for and then you can ship the products yourself. Once you know how to do the shipping process yourself you can outsource the prep to companies like FBAinspection.com because you know exactly what steps you need to outsource for your specific product.

    • Hi
      Can you imagine I’ve had an Alibaba account for more than 11 years, have never even made a cent from it. Back then even when my vision was clear ecommerce was a scary territory for me being new to desktops and all. But I still have a question, since I’m not based in the US won’t it affect my order turnaround time and costing drastically to sell on amazon? I’M afraid I might price myself out of market

      • Living outside the USA is not a huge problem. Your first few orders can be a little bit more expensive but once you make larger orders you can hire a middle man to handle all your warehousing in the united states.

        • What kind of licensing you need if you buying products from Ali baba. Example A t-shirts for the company located in US and you are the middle man. Buying for $5 and selling for $10.

          • Hey Shain, depending on what you’re selling you may or may not need a license. I don’t recommend selling anything you need a license for. For example, if you’re selling a t shirt with no branding then you don’t need a license. But if you’re looking for “Nike” or something with a brand, that would be against the law. Does that make sense?

  21. Hey! Great article, very informative. I have a question though. I’m thinking about importing Bones Red skateboard bearings. Would this be illegal since it’s a brand name? Or should I go ahead and do it anyway?

    Thanks!
    Jon

  22. Hello,
    My name is manoj and I am from india.I would like to thank you for providing these important tips.your article is a real booster for enterpruners but your mentioned tools are not so effective in India.
    Sir,I was wondering if you can help me out to find a good niche product for India or help me out with tips to find a good product.
    I am thinking to get on USB flash drive to import is my idea correct.
    Hope you help me out.I shall be very greatful to you.
    Thank you,
    Manoj

    • Hi Mack, my name is Jack from China, I run a import and export company, I can source the cost effective product, pls contact me if you have any interest to buy something from China. thanks.

  23. Hey Guys, This is some awesome info!! I met Edmund in Austin, TX at a training seminar, very bright dude!

    Quick question…Have you ever asked a supplier to make changes to the product you inquired about? I would like to make some improvements before getting samples. Is this something they can do?

    Thanks a bunch!

  24. Hi, thanks for your this blog post it is really inspiring. I am trying to get started with importing from china myself though not to sell on amazon but in brick and mortar stores in my country. May be later i will give amazon a shot as i am not from the US.

    Thanks for the tips i am following them and i hope everything works out for me.

  25. Hey guys! this info is INSANELY GOOD!

    I have a quick question, If I list a product on Amazon and post some ads on Facebook and Amazon, how do I know which sale came from Facebook and which one from amazon ads or just because someone searched for my product? theres a accurate way to keep track on this? one more question, how much is it Facebook Pay per click? thank you very much for your guidance buddy.

    • Glad you liked it Jonas, thanks for checking it out!

      I believe you’ll be able to track that in Amazon’s Reports section. But I should say – start with Amazon ads! They’ve been VERY effective for our clients.

  26. You rock! Especially from the point of view of a local freight forwarder in China.

    Your email template of discussing MOQ with Chinese supplier is awesome. Besides, there are tons of useful information worth reading and thinking.

    Only one advise:

    New importer can let the supplier contact the courier for freight delivery if small quantity or samples. Because the courier cost is cheaper if prepaid than collect at most cases. So here’s the step.

    1. Let the supplier quote the courier cost.
    2. Get the courier cost by oneself from the local courier branch or online.
    3. Compare firstly, then decide.

  27. WOW! This sounds like awesomness, very detailed article. I was just planning to order some polymer clay from alibaba and flip it locally. Do you think it is worth going local or online is the best choice?

  28. Awesome! I wonder how important is to check gold supplier years. A lot of suppliers are only one year gold supplier. Is one year enough to trust them or should I rather check those with higher years? Thanks

    • You want to give more weight to the suppliers with more years as a gold supplier. You can think of the gold supplier emblem as “necessary but not sufficient”. If you can only find newer suppliers then don’t let that be a sticking point, just be cautious.

  29. I have received the samples from Alibaba and your tutorial has come at a excellent time. I unfortunetly do not have much money because of which I am stuck between registering a company without which I cannot sell, and buying more stock.

    Have you ever thought of going to retailers and setting deals with them?

      • Did you have any success with that?

        I feel if I start this it will become a business that I would like to expand on, did you have any business such as this that you could expand and turn it into your own brand just from importing?

        Any good articles or reads you suggest on making deals with retailers?

        • I personally ran my importing business only online. We have a few clients that work with retailers and it’s a more straight-forward process than you’d expect.

          We don’t have any public articles on making deals with retailers (although that’s a great idea!) but we talk about it in our coaching program a bit.

          • Thanks for the reply,

            Did you ever think about importing from china and turning products into your own brand?

            Do you think that would work?

            Last question… I promise..

  30. Awesome! This helped me a lot. Right now I’m in China as an exchange student, so as soon as i get home I will start. Thanks again ๐Ÿ™‚

  31. 1 word… Awesome! I stumbled onto your blog looking for business validation methods. I didn’t know I’d be spending so much time here reading all the great info! I have a list of 10 ideas for products that I can sell that meet all the important criteria you’ve laid out. I’ve narrowed my list to my favorite 3. Now…

    Before I contact suppliers, my question is, how many samples should I request? I will be selling on amazon, as I feel it’s the best outlet for me and a place to methodically scale my business.

    Thanks for all the fantastic information!

  32. Awesome article Edmund! Any courses you would recommend to learn the ins and outs as quick as possible? Ideally if there was some sort of mastermind that would be great

      • Hey Kyle,

        Interested too in the course! ๐Ÿ™‚

        BTW, I have questions with returns. Do you return those to China?

        • I’ll send you an email now ๐Ÿ™‚

          The returns process will depend on your specific situation. If you just get samples and they’re not as they should be you may be able to negotiate with your supplier to have them send a better product over. Other times you may decide to eat the cost (maybe try to sell it on eBay) and switch suppliers.

          • Hey Kyle,

            I am a newbie from the UK.

            We live on a small island lol – this stuff is way over my head but I want in. Do you have a dummies guide to get me started up selling on Amazon.

            Happy to pay for the course stuck in a rut 9 – 2- 5 no end to this recession – need out.

            Stress, work and worry making me not only unhappy but affecting health so came across this site from reading about alternatives to the Amazing Selling Machine ( way tooo expensive and saturated – too many people waiting for the enxt course).

            I need to do something now.

            Many thanks in advance if you can point me tot he right direction

  33. Awesome article Edmund! Any courses you would recommend to learn the ins and outs as quick as possible? Ideally if there was some sort of mastermind that would be great

  34. Great article! Wow… You guys are awesome.

    What if your supplier refuses to budge on MOQ?

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