question marks about sorcing inventory

3 Essential Questions to Ask About Sourcing Inventory

question marks about sorcing inventoryYou’ve done some planning and have a great idea of what you what you want your online store to be. Yet, how you go about sourcing inventory to resell might be near the bottom of your list of things to do.

That’s why it’s so important to ask a few essential questions that can help guide you.

Should I sell the most popular products?

This often gives sellers a feeling of safety. They rationalize that if sourcing inventory in this manner works for the competition, it should also work for them.

Well, not always.

Related Article: 5 Affordable Ways to Source Ecommerce Inventory That Sells

Generally speaking, it’s a bad idea to sell what everyone else is selling—even if it seems they are successful. That’s because the level of competition is likely to squeeze your margins paper thin, or even worse.

So don’t be afraid to jump off the bandwagon.

In fact, notes eBay business expert Neil Waterhouse, “All you need to build a million-dollar eBay business is a portfolio of average products.”

How can I make sure my products are profitable?

You have to to do your homework.

Simply put, before you decide how to go about sourcing inventory that can turn a profit, you need to know your niche market. Even more important is having a working knowledge of what they are willing to pay for your products.

This translates to getting a handle on not only your operating costs, but also your overall business costs. In other words, spending quality time doing market research and learning as much as you can about how pricing and margins affect your bottom line.

“The biggest mistake I see eBay sellers make is selling low margin products,” warns Waterhouse. “High margins, greater than 100% and automation are the secrets to working smart, not hard.

What is a fairly simple strategy to start with?

There are, to be sure, many different sourcing strategies you can try, some more complicated than others.

But one of the simplest—especially if you’re just starting out—may be sourcing inventory directly from the clearance aisles of local stores in your area.

The reason is that often these are the discontinued items. So this means you’ll have exclusive merchandise to sell through your online store.

In fact, the longer something has been off the shelves the higher the price you can charge. As long as they are items you know people will want to buy.

Related Article: Here’s a Quick Way to Find eBay Inventory That Sells

Ultimately, being successful at sourcing inventory for eBay, or any other platform, comes down to trying different methods and then tracking and comparing the results.

 

Have an idea for a future blog post? Please feel free to leave a suggestion below!

Resources:

https://www.shopfactory.com/contents/en-us/p796_-How-to-source-products-for-your-online-store.html

https://www.webretailer.com/lean-commerce/product-sourcing-strategy/

https://blog.edesk.com/resources/product-sourcing-sell-online

https://thesellingfamily.com/our-top-4-ways-to-source-inventory-for-our-amazon-fba-business/

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