eBay provides many marketers with their first experience of selling online. In fact some sellers grow to love eBay so much their eBay business becomes their main source of income, but whether selling on eBay, via the Amazon marketplace, or from a personally-owned site all online sellers need a way to source products to sell.
There are many ways to source products. To list and explain them all would be beyond the scope of this article, so we’ll concentrate on a few of the more simple options.
Strangely enough, eBay can be a good source of products and simply typing the words “Joblot” or “wholesale” into the eBay search engine can provide some interesting results.
Some of which are available on “Buy it Now”.
It is also possible to grab some eBay bargains by searching for misspelled products, but it makes sense to search for top of the range products, such as designer clothes etc.
Fortunately there are some online tools that can make the task of sourcing eBay products this way much easier:
For example, visiting Missing-Auctions.com and entering the search term “DKNY” (Donna Karan New York) in “Clothes, Shoes & Accessories”, and selecting eBay.co.uk (there are many other options—eBay.com, eBay.nl etc.) returned several interesting results including this small shoulder bag that has been listed as “DNKY” instead of “DKNY”.
It looks like a nice bag and a second eBay search, using the term “DKNY shoulder bag”, and selecting “completed listings” reveals £4.50 is very cheap for such a bag. Even with the added £5 postage it is still cheap because DKNY bags regularly listed on eBay at considerably higher prices.
Other ways to source products to sell include:
Wholesale suppliers such as Alibaba.com
Mail order returns companies such as A1 Fashions
Bankrupt stock specialists such as Suppliers of Bankrupt Stock (How’s that for a name that gets straight to the point?)
John Brennan is director of ePresence Internet Marketing. He is an experienced management consultant, specialising in Digital Marketing, Business Development, Product Development and Innovation Management.
Owner/director of ePresence, John also lectures in Digital Advertising and Analytics at Cork Institute of Technology.
John has an Electronic Engineering Degree from Cork Institute of Technology, MBA from University College Cork and Executive Training at Kellogg Business School, Chicago.
Before setting up ePresence, John held various roles such as Software Engineer, Director of Engineering, Director of Product and Program Management, Vice President of Product Development and General Manager in world leading organisations such as Apple, IBM, Snap-on Inc. and FMC.
John combines his technology know-how, management experience and customer focus to help his clients achieve online success.
