David emailed. Yeah, he shared about his business and asked about finding new suppliers for name brand power tools. Take a listen and then read through his question along with answers below the audio file:
“Rob…at the beginning of this year I started a small business with a guy that I currently work with. We got started by finding a guy that had contacts in the wholesale/liquidation business. Business is going good for only doing it part time. We would like to work at it full time but just haven’t made that step yet.
To answer your questions from your email:
- Right now we are mainly selling on ebay. We have recently redone our website and are starting to sell in the Square Marketplace. We would eventually like to open a physical store as well, but were not quite there yet.
- So far we’ve only dealt with one contact in our purchasing. Learning what the different categories he sells in (salvage, scratch and dent, needs testing) has been a learning experience. Our first purchase we made we bought a pallet from each category. Long story short we had a lot of unusable merchandise that we had to find a way to get rid of. But now we know what we need to buy from this particular contact and things are going a lot smoother.
- The items we get are mostly customers returns. A lot of the stuff is barely used. So besides the occasional item that doesn’t work properly customer returns are great.
- The main item we sell is power tools. We have order a few pallets of general merchandise but we are having a harder time finding a buyer for that. We would like to stick with power tools and keep selling those. I think our success so far has been we get name brand tools and not off brands.
We would also like to sell hand tools, but our contact doesn’t seem to have those too often. We are trying to find more contacts so we aren’t so dependent on the one we have. Trying to get in touch with the big box stores. But like you’ve said it’s hard to get a hold of the right person.
Have you heard of anyone being able to deal directly with tool manufactures?
We are still a small and growing business so we don’t have a lot of money backing us. Pretty much the money we have already put in and what we make on each load, as it sells. I have purchase your Liquidators Guide and have started reading it. Unfortunately I have not been able to finish it as of yet.
I appreciate you taking the time to reach out and find out about my business. Thank you. David“
David, thanks for sending the email, it Sounds like you’re off to a great start. Keep researching suppliers and please take your time. If you’ve reached the mechanics area of The Liquidators Guide, you will recall me talking about learning through “trial and error.”
Here are a few ideas for you:
Craigslist – have you thought about selling general merchandise on Craigslist? You mentioned having difficulty selling some items on eBay. Craigslist is another channel for you and your business partner to explore. I have a few Craigslist posts HERE
Tool Truckloads:
I’ve heard goods thing about All Prime Products, in fact, Rich has been in the liquidation business for about 12-13 years helping people source customer returns and shelf pull merchandise for eBay and Amazon. Take a look at www.allprimeproducts.com
I’ve personally worked with AML INC, buying liquidations. They offer tool loads that can be found here www.amlinc.com.
If you’re close to the west coast, check out Via Trading for tool loads. I’ve been to their warehouse…it’s gigantic!.
David, thanks again for emailing. let’s stay in touch, I’d really like to hear about your future success!
