Employed and starting own business (import/resell) - few questions

TripleAce

ironclaw wrote: »

Employ a trustworthy college student? Pay them their mileage and have them sort out delivery's / basic admin. Would most certainly be the cheapest option as I'm sure (Myself included back in the day) would snap up an opportunity for some cash after hours.

I guess "trustworthy" is the problem, but for sure it could be an option. I am currently only selling on eBay so I can take my products down whenever I go on holidays, however I can't put down the site once it is live and so I have decided to launch it officially around the 12th/13th of December as I will be on holidays for a couple of weeks before then, which sucks as when I booked the holiday a couple of months ago I didn't think about missing much on Christmas sales and/or was hoping to have already a fulfillment company hired, but then it took longer than expected to setup company/bank account/etc as my wife was away for a week and I needed her signature to complete some documents.
Not a big deal as I want to think about this as a long-term business, so I am more focus and putting everything together at the moment than making some short-term profit.
After this holiday I won't be going away until April hopefully, so I will have about 3 months to sort everything and have proper coverage for when I leave next time (and hopefully enough sales to justify the cost of either paying someone or a fulfillment company), so I can then focus on all other aspects of the business.

ironclaw

Best of luck with it TripleAce. But I'd be mindful of that launch date, postage will be grinding to a halt around then unless you are restricting to personal delivery only which I presume will be in your immediate locality? I'd almost wait for the Christmas rush to be over, you run the risk of being overwhelmed if you have a lot of orders on the cards and no prospect of resupply until the New Year.

TripleAce

ironclaw wrote: »

Best of luck with it TripleAce. But I'd be mindful of that launch date, postage will be grinding to a halt around then unless you are restricting to personal delivery only which I presume will be in your immediate locality? I'd almost wait for the Christmas rush to be over, you run the risk of being overwhelmed if you have a lot of orders on the cards and no prospect of resupply until the New Year.

Thanks for the advice, I am a bit concerned about this too. Plan is to start advertising Ireland/UK first, but as you say delivery may get delayed over the Christmas period. I wish we were in July/August now, I should have moved a bit faster earlier :mad:

As I will be on holidays for a couple of weeks travelling and will have a lot of free time between activities, can anyone advise a good book about e-Commerce Marketing/Advertising/Sales strategies? I want to read at least a couple of books when away, any suggestion is more than welcome!

TripleAce

I post a question here as I don't think I should start a new thread for this.

Just before Christmas I received my first shipment as a LTD company from a Chinese supplier (took a bit longer than expected to complete the branding process), value of the sample around 600$. Once arrived I had to provide the courier with the payment details so they could charge VAT/Duty Tax, which turned out to be around 200$. They also required me to provide a EORI number that I needed to get before the goods could be cleared and screenshot of paypal transaction. I did so and got the goods.

Last week I received my first sample order from a supplier from Pakistan, value also around 600$ - same product category but different look/type. After opening the shipment I noticed that he declared only 150$ as value on shipment and the courier only charged me around 50$, which I paid to the delivery guy. This supplier is from a different country (Pakistan) and I never imported anything from there before, but I believe the reason I only paid 50$ taxes is because he under-declared the value of the goods and not because a lower tax rate than China.

My question is, once I prepare the book-keeping file for my accountant at the end of the year and he will pass the detail to the Tax office, will they wonder why on a purchasing transaction of 600$ I only paid 40$ taxes? Or should be up to the courier company to verify? I will ask my supplier to quote the correct value on next shipments, but I am not sure whether I should call the courier and tell them about the mistake so I can pay the correct value?

Any advice is more than welcome!

pedronomix

If you are registered for VAT the VAT will be collected from you sales, so only a payment timing issue and little no loss to the state. If you are nor Vat reg, it is a fraud on the state! Opening it up to scrutiny will cause you untold grief. I would just make sure it is invoiced correctly in future. It is highly unlikely to be uncovered as a one off unless you get a full audit......unlikely at this level of trading.

TripleAce

pedronomix wrote: »

If you are registered for VAT the VAT will be collected from you sales, so only a payment timing issue and little no loss to the state. If you are nor Vat reg, it is a fraud on the state! Opening it up to scrutiny will cause you untold grief. I would just make sure it is invoiced correctly in future. It is highly unlikely to be uncovered as a one off unless you get a full audit......unlikely at this level of trading.

Thank you! I am not registered for VAT, I will make sure the supplier will send the invoices for the correct amount in future. Should I ask my supplier the correct invoice for this shipment also and call the courier to fix it?

Regarding the previous shipment for which 200€ were charged in VAT/Duty, this is actually way off. I went to this site http://www.dutycalculator.com/ this morning and Duty/Taxes for this product should have been 130€, so courier charged me 70€ more! I haven't paid yet, will call them to clarify.

Another thing I am a bit confused about though, suppose I pay a supplier 1000€ for a shipment, of this 700€ is for the cost of the products, 100€ for shipping and 200€ for one-off work done on the products such as printing, services/minor changes, shouldn't the billable VAT/Duty only be for 700€+100€ and exclude the 200€ ?

Thank you for your help.

pedronomix

Duty is calculated on the total invoice charge plus any delivery and then VAT on that total. As to the other matter that is a decision only you can make

JMR

In relation to your earlier query on outsourcing the storage and delivery of your orders, I can recommend 2flow

We use them for Ireland and Europe (Non UK) deliveries and have found them excellent.
Storage is charged on a monthly basis and obviously varies depending on the space you require. Order pick and pack is charged at €1.25 and next day delivery in Ireland is €4.95 up to 2kg

They are based adjacent to exit 5 on the M50 in Dublin

We use a separate company in the UK as next day delivery is vital to us.

Best of luck with your venture and shout if you have any other questions.

TripleAce

JMR wrote: »

In relation to your earlier query on outsourcing the storage and delivery of your orders, I can recommend 2flow

We use them for Ireland and Europe (Non UK) deliveries and have found them excellent.
Storage is charged on a monthly basis and obviously varies depending on the space you require. Order pick and pack is charged at €1.25 and next day delivery in Ireland is €4.95 up to 2kg

They are based adjacent to exit 5 on the M50 in Dublin

We use a separate company in the UK as next day delivery is vital to us.

Best of luck with your venture and shout if you have any other questions.

Thank you! Much appreciated!
Hope to finally launch the website in the next 2 weeks (with a bit of delay on the initial plan), I have everything ready to go in terms of product but I am waiting for a photo-studio I bought on Aliexpress to arrive, as without it pictures-quality was not really good. Sorting out also some minor things like stickers/leaflets/boxes, etc. and spending time studying adwords and reading marketing/branding books at the moment.
Getting really excited, can't wait! Don't want to start selling on Amazon until I have my website up and running first.
Don't have long holidays planned until June so for now I can just go down to the post office when receive an order and ship the items, but if all goes to plan I will have enough orders coming in by then to justify outsourcing the shipping, so again thanks for the tip

JMR

TripleAce wrote: »

Don't have long holidays planned until June so for now I can just go down to the post office when receive an order and ship the items, but if all goes to plan I will have enough orders coming in by then to justify outsourcing the shipping, so again thanks for the tip

I also work full time outside of the eCommerce business and discovered that by outsourcing the storage and delivery side of the business I could use the precious little time available to grow the business rather than spending it fulfilling orders.
For sure, you are doing the right thing to start out doing it yourself, just keep it in the back of your mind as you move forward with the business as I'm sure you don't want to spend your time packing boxes and travelling to the Post Office long term.

TripleAce

JMR wrote: »

I'm sure you don't want to spend your time packing boxes and travelling to the Post Office long term.

At the moment is my excuse to leave home/office for 20 minutes and get some fresh air

TripleAce

I just wonder if there is an online portal (something like booking.com for holidays or skyscanner.com for flights) for couriers whereby I can get an estimate quote to get a heavy shipment from China to Ireland from the main couriers without having to contact them one by one?

This is by far the biggest shipment so far, my supplier would send via DHL and they were quoted 360 USD for a 55kg shipment. I am not sure whether this is good/bad/standard? If this is a good price I would just go with it, however if there is a way I can save some $$$ is always welcome.

Thank you for your help!

zac8

TripleAce wrote: »

I just wonder if there is an online portal (something like booking.com for holidays or skyscanner.com for flights) for couriers whereby I can get an estimate quote to get a heavy shipment from China to Ireland from the main couriers without having to contact them one by one?

Have you tried www.parcel2go.com?

TripleAce

zac8 wrote: »

Have you tried www.parcel2go.com?

Thanks.

For some reason it doesn't give me a quote between China and Ireland

The service is not available between the selected locations
Please check that you have selected the correct collection and delivery countries.

jimmii

TripleAce wrote: »

Thanks.

For some reason it doesn't give me a quote between China and Ireland

The service is not available between the selected locations
Please check that you have selected the correct collection and delivery countries.

I use P2G a lot great way to save when sending stuff! Its only really Europe to Europe though really the couriers don't quote for Asia, Africa, South America etc. still handy though. 20kg box to UK for €19.99 thats unreal value if you use that route.

TripleAce

jimmii wrote: »

I use P2G a lot great way to save when sending stuff! Its only really Europe to Europe though really the couriers don't quote for Asia, Africa, South America etc. still handy though. 20kg box to UK for €19.99 thats unreal value if you use that route.

Website bookmarked

BattleReady

TripleAce wrote: »

Thanks.

For some reason it doesn't give me a quote between China and Ireland

The service is not available between the selected locations
Please check that you have selected the correct collection and delivery countries.

Hi,
you should try the guys at parceldirect ie, we have an account with them as we sell on Ebay and Amazon. we have linked our accounts to their website and upload all our sales in one go. They also have a megento plugin for the same so we upload all our sales in a few clicks.

They gave us some great rates for regulars shipment, even lower than their advertised rates and lower than P2G.

BattleReady

jimmii wrote: »

I use P2G a lot great way to save when sending stuff! Its only really Europe to Europe though really the couriers don't quote for Asia, Africa, South America etc. still handy though. 20kg box to UK for €19.99 thats unreal value if you use that route.

You should try the guys at parcel direct ie. We used to use P2G but their customer service is non resistant. The guys at parcel direct are cheaper and always at the end of the phone

TripleAce

BattleReady wrote: »

Hi,
you should try the guys at parceldirect ie, we have an account with them as we sell on Ebay and Amazon. we have linked our accounts to their website and upload all our sales in one go. They also have a megento plugin for the same so we upload all our sales in a few clicks.

They gave us some great rates for regulars shipment, even lower than their advertised rates and lower than P2G.

Thank you for the comment - I went to their website, but this is the best price I got for a 55kg shipment from China to Ireland. I will check for European deliveries once I will outsource the shipping in the next few months.



I start thinking that the 360$ rate provided by my supplier is actually pretty good.

Will keep searching when I have a bit of time though.

BattleReady

TripleAce wrote:

I start thinking that the 360$ rate provided by my supplier is actually pretty good.

v


You should drop them a mail for a special rate.

Also from experience suppliers tend to have some very competitive rates. But check the difference between air and sea also.

TripleAce

Finally, the D-Day has come and I launched today my e-commerce website . It took a bit longer than I planned because I had to wait for the photo equipment to arrive so I could take higher quality pictures of the products. Al done now, have about 50 products on the site (including variations) and I am really happy about it. I will spend the next few days working on AdWords and trying be found online and get my first sale via the website. Next week I will also open an Amazon Seller account and sell my products there as well, as planned.
Looking ahead the plan is obviously to grow as fast as possible and I am looking to get some advice here and what the next move should be. At the moment the website is in English and initially I will target my Adwords Ads on Ireland and the UK. My website is a .com but I also bought .co.uk and .ie domain and forward traffic to the .com.
Priority #1 is to get Adwords optimized, improve SEO and get active on Amazon, and then?

I was thinking on how to move from here and came up with four main points, I would need some help to understand in your opinion which one(s) should I go with first:

1) Translate site in different languages: I could easily get the website translated into Italian, Spanish, French and German. I can then get more customers from those countries which would obviously be positive. Shipping cost to those countries is the same as sending to the UK and not much more expensive that sending to Ireland (items I sell are quite light). Advertisement costs will be obviously higher.
Ideally I would need to buy .it, .es, .fr and .de domains, even though is not a must and the .com can work just fine. I would need to understand however what the implications are to get those domains, as for example getting the .ie was not as straight forward as getting the .com and I may not be able to purchase those domains unless I have the business registered there.

2) Extend product range: I am already quite happy with the products I have and have another addition coming in hopefully by the middle of March. Unfortunately, in China they are on a two weeks break now and so I won’t be getting anything done until mid-February, when they are back however I have the drawings of the product ready to go and EOM branding will take about 20 days according to my supplier. This is a great product that I have been selling on eBay as a generic in the past two months and have about 60/70 email addresses of existing customers plus all the ones that will be purchasing in the future – hopefully I can drive part of them to purchase my brand going forward. It is also great because on the contrary of the other products on my website this is something that if users need to purchase at least once per month, so it would be great to get regular customers!
After this product is done however I wonder if I should keep going and look for new products or hold back for a while and prioritize on of the other points?

3) Extend social network presence: at the moment my plan is to use AdWords and Amazon PPC to get traffic, however I wonder if it would be worth to invest time on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter also. The downside is definitely that I can’t just invest money and get it working by itself, I could need to actually spend time looking after it (unless I outsource it to somebody for a couple of hours per week). I am not very creative with these things though and I am afraid I would run out of original posts soon, so if I go ahead with this I think outsourcing would be the way to go in the long run and shouldn't be too expensive either.

4) Look for new sales venues: apart from my website and Amazon I will continue selling on eBay, however I am not planning to sell some of my branded products there as I don’t want the brand to be associated to eBay. I can still use eBay for generic items though as I have done until now and use it to try to drive customers from there to my website when a purchase is completed. There other sites however (ie. in Ireland Done Deal, Buy and Sell, etc for example) that deserve to be looked into. I am not sure this should be a priority though.
Question here is simple, if you were in my shoes, what would you do next? I can’t do all four together, I can definitely do two of the above in parallel though.

Sorry for the long post!
Any advice and suggestion is welcome as usual! Thank you

TripleAce

Repeated post.

cart man

Hi TripleAce,
congratulations, I have been following from a distance, I would love to see the site myself could you share a link please?
Thanks and well done, Cart man

jimmii

Congrats on getting up and running!

TripleAce

cart man wrote: »

Hi TripleAce,
congratulations, I have been following from a distance, I would love to see the site myself could you share a link please?
Thanks and well done, Cart man

Hi,

sorry I won't be sharing for now until I get more established for many reasons that you can imagine, I really don't want to induce more competition of any sort or give inspiration to start something specifically in my niche of choice.

But if you have question not related to the specific products I sell I will be happy to answer

TripleAce

jimmii wrote: »

Congrats on getting up and running!

Thank you Jimmy!

Would you have any suggestion on my questions above?

jimmii

TripleAce wrote: »

Thank you Jimmy!

Would you have any suggestion on my questions above?

Its that age old expansion question sell the same products to more people or sell more products to the same people. How related are the new products? As long as there is demand for the new products within the existing customer base that is obviously the easiest to achieve. If you're set on launching these products it's probably best to do it in your home market first instead of trying to launch the existing range abroad and at the same time the new range at home. You don't want to be spreading yourself too thin!

TripleAce

jimmii wrote: »

Its that age old expansion question sell the same products to more people or sell more products to the same people. How related are the new products? As long as there is demand for the new products within the existing customer base that is obviously the easiest to achieve. If you're set on launching these products it's probably best to do it in your home market first instead of trying to launch the existing range abroad and at the same time the new range at home. You don't want to be spreading yourself too thin!

Thanks for the advice! Any product I add will be somewhat related as I don't want have a shop where I sell bananas along with car parts . I think the next few months will be very interesting, for sure I won't get bored!
What I could try to do is to keep my shop in English only and test out some of the product by selling them on Amazon .it, .fr, .es and .de, that should be pretty straight forward and would also give me an idea of where I could get more business from and then decide how to enhance the website based on that. I am sure I will learn more in the next 12 months that I probably have in my whole life, really looking forward to this, it's a bit like playing a strategy game for me

Hollister11

TripleAce wrote: »

Thanks for the advice! Any product I add will be somewhat related as I don't want have a shop where I sell bananas along with car parts . I think the next few months will be very interesting, for sure I won't get bored!
What I could try to do is to keep my shop in English only and test out some of the product by selling them on Amazon .it, .fr, .es and .de, that should be pretty straight forward and would also give me an idea of where I could get more business from and then decide how to enhance the website based on that. I am sure I will learn more in the next 12 months that I probably have in my whole life, really looking forward to this, it's a bit like playing a strategy game for me

Did you give up a full time job to start this venture, or is it alongside your job ?

TripleAce

Hollister11 wrote: »

Did you give up a full time job to start this venture, or is it alongside your job ?

No I am still working full time, to be honest although I am extremely busy in this period to setup the website and start thinking about marketing strategies (as per above), etc. etc. once these start up activities are done I believe that in the long term I will need to more than 2 hours/day to get this running until I expand really much (and maybe create a second/third site on different niche).

With 2 hours per day I should get much done once the process has stabilized, example:

- 30 minutes/day optimizing ads on Adwords, Amazon, eBay, etc. etc.
- 30 minutes/day admin work, accounting, check stock, place orders with existing suppliers when needed, answer to customers queries if any. Website shouldn't need too much touching apart for some small updates from time to time that I can do myself.
- 30 minutes/day looking for new products/opportunities to expand.
- 30 minutes day for shipping (go to post office, ship and back), until I will have enough sales to justify outsourcing it.

Also I need to try and find at least 2-3 hours/week to read books on the topic, plenty of info out there that can save plenty of €€€.

If some simple but time-consuming activities come up I prefer to just outsource to someone via UpWork, can get resources for very cheap to do simple work and save time. For example I need some help with the new product logo and file conversions and I just got it done for 10$ from a guy based in Macedonia, same with my first product for 10$ a guy in Bulgaria delivered me a work that would have taken me 2-3 hours to complete as I don't have the knowledge and at the time I decided that was not worth learning (now I am re-considering and some basic knowledge in Photoshop or editing programs could help as I usually just use Paint for drawing products drafts :rolleyes: ). And I could have gone cheaper as resources are available even for 3$-5$/hour if needed and very easy to find/hire on upwork.com or freelancer.com or similar sites, so it just makes a lot of sense to outsource simple activities if possible.

Obviously as product range increases, sales will (hopefully) increase and then I will need to dedicate more time to this, but consider that even when I find a new product it takes time to get it ready: research the product (very long process), design the logo, give the product a name, see if modifications/improvements can be done to the product, find supplier, agree pricing, send drawing, get it done, shipped, etc. etc. I think it would probably take an average of 2 months, but will have a better idea when I have a bigger sample of products available. Also as I gain experience I guess it will get easier.

Hope to get to a point where I earn enough to justify quitting my day job, I would be happy if I could do so in 2-3 years time, target is to leave the job when I earn with the business at least 2x what I earn with my job on a 12-months period.