Re: Purchasing TV's Ireland Wholesale

terkelly01

Hi,

I'm thinking of starting a no bricks and mortar business selling tv's online - with delivery in the 32 countries - anyone know if I can purchase tv's in Ireland from a wholesaler or do I need to go direct to the manufacturers?

Thanks,

T.

StupidLikeAFox

terkelly01 wrote: »

Hi,

I'm thinking of starting a no bricks and mortar business selling tv's online - with delivery in the 32 countries - anyone know if I can purchase tv's in Ireland from a wholesaler or do I need to go direct to the manufacturers?

Thanks,

T.

I doubt the manufacturers would be interested unless you want to buy thousands. I doubt there are wholesalers in the traditional sense for this type of thing - tvs are generally sold through large chains or independent shops that are affiliated to a buying group (expert electrical etc).

To answer your question, fundamentally you can sell pretty much anything regardless of who sells it to you. First you need to find a wholesaler or manufacturer that will sell to you

ironclaw

Most people will want to see a TV before they buy it. How it fits in the room, the physical side, what it looks like up close. Its going to sit in your house for a few years so you'll want to be happy with it. I know some people will wander by Power City or DID, then go home and buy online, but given the marginal difference in price and the 'take it home now' advantage, I'd be curious of the sales volume of TVs in the online space. They are also really delicate and need to be handle with care, you also can't have them in extreme cold or fast changes of air temperature (Condensation)

I doubt you could possibly buy, sell and delivery TVs for less than the major players. Imagine a one TV drop in the middle of Connemara? You'd never make it back. And even if you could, you then have to deal with the expense of returns when they inevitably occur.

hairyslug

Try exertis out in Ballymount, they distribute for Samsung. Their credit terms are fairly basic (but I was enquiring about bulk low end items so it may be different for TVs)

Also, I'm not sure (as you would be selling online) but WEEE may be a factor.

pedroeibar1

So what research have you done to show (a) you have a service that is wanted; (b) how you can compete with the big multiples; (c) even back of an envelope figures on profitability?

terkelly01

No real research done as of yet - I want to see what sites like this come back with and then I'll take a closer look - as some of the comments suggest there is definitely some challenges from getting the stock at a price that makes sense to ensuring consumers are happy to purchasing a tv product online - I'm not putting my life savings into this! without fully understanding both areas. From personal experience I know a few guys that have bought screens online and are happy with the outcome and as the trend is online/mobile you never know - sure those retail stores must be charging a large margin to afford, sales staff, stores and inventories on-site - thanks to all for your feedback

ironclaw

From speaking with a lot of friends who worked in the larger stores, their margin isn't great, at least their haggle room wasn't. They could knock off the price of a stand or some cables, but multiples of percentages no. They really were selling at the extreme end as the market is super competitive. Think about Carrickmines for example, you have all the major players within 200m of one another, €5 would probably swing a sale. So you are going to cut it as fine as you can to shift stock.

You'd comfortable need about €100k to get this off the ground and most of that would be advertising. You'll need massive stock turn over and serious momentum to drive it home. Also, you're going to be competing with Amazon, Komplett etc.

As much as I hate to shoot down an idea, its a non-starter from the get go.

duploelabs

With the sterling the way it is, you'd be much better off buying in from someone like Midwich in the UK

duploelabs

ironclaw wrote: »

From speaking with a lot of friends who worked in the larger stores, their margin isn't great, at least their haggle room wasn't. They could knock off the price of a stand or some cables, but multiples of percentages no. They really were selling at the extreme end as the market is super competitive. Think about Carrickmines for example, you have all the major players within 200m of one another, €5 would probably swing a sale. So you are going to cut it as fine as you can to shift stock.

You'd comfortable need about €100k to get this off the ground and most of that would be advertising. You'll need massive stock turn over and serious momentum to drive it home. Also, you're going to be competing with Amazon, Komplett etc.

As much as I hate to shoot down an idea, its a non-starter from the get go.

100K for what?

terkelly01

Thanks Ironclaw - I did wonder why other online electrical suppliers haven't gone into the tv product category and maybe some of the reasons are b/c of the one's outlined but sure no harm done!

terkelly01

Thanks for that I've asked them for pricing. Regards T.

antoinolachtnai

There are retailers who seem to be doing a quiet trade on amazon for smaller things.

Your problem, basically, is that your per-unit overheads will be too high and the price you will pay for the items and the terms you will have are not going to be very good.

I heard personally about one large Irish group had extremely favourable terms with distributors (it isn't just price, it's also things like refund policy).

You also have stuff like WEEE to think about. You have to be prepared to collect and recycle old TVs. This can be done, for sure, but it is a real cost.

If you could get one of the big groups as a partner, you might get somewhere.

Bear in mind that bricks-n-mortar distributors aren't necessarily interested in bringing someone new into the market to knock down retail margins.

You would also need to know advertising and marketing backwards. It is possible to get a lot of advertising for very little money up-front, but you really need to know the people and know what you are doing.