Businesses for sale

Examples of this type of listing can be found at the following sites:

http://www.businessesforsale.com

http://www.daltonsbusiness.com

http://www.bizbuysell.com

Check eBay Listings
Still struggling!  Look at eBay auction listings paying particular interest to any auctions that attract high volumes of visits and/or high numbers of bids. Busy auctions obviously suggest that the product is sought after and will therefore sell well if you can find a regular and decent supply of that product. 

Local Businesses
Look around you; everything you see, apart from the general flora and forna, is for sale. If it is sold then there must be a market for it! I often look for inspiration from local trades people, businesses in my locality that do a good local trade but lack the knowledge and desire to take their product / service onto the internet. Often relationships can be built with these businesses where, if you can build an internet market for their product, they will hold the stock and in some cases complete the fulfillment of the sale. For example, I discovered a business that manufactured and sold handmade ceramic tiles. I was able to negotiate a deal with the business owner where I received a 33% discount on their product range and when I made an internet sale I provided them with the customer and order information and they would complete the sales process. As it was my site that took the money from the customer the business owner raised a monthly invoice for all completed orders. After expenses my business made 25% on sales and held no stock and provided no fulfillment. We no longer run this operation as we were able to sell the website to the owner of the ceramic tile business after approximately 18 months on-line. We made good profits in the interim and finished up with a generous lump sum when we sold the website on. 

For further ideas, a lot can be learned from searching the top-500 sites and looking at the movers and shakers lists on Alexa. You can also use Alexa to analyze competitors and potential markets for traffic-trends to indicate how profitable particular product lines might be.

http://www.internetretailer.com/, which despite the similarity in the domain name is not associated with us, is another excellent source of information. If you are looking for proof that internet sales are on the increase, look no further. They also provide regular articles that provide some invaluable market sector analysis, which is great for helping to choose new and exciting product lines.

Technorati Tags: business planning, Product Selection, Product Sourcing

Alibaba – probably the biggest trade community with hundreds of thousands of Buyer and seller visits every day, there are thousands of new trade leads posted almost continually throughout the day. If you are serious about selling products online you should check this site every day.

There are other less active communities, similar to Alibaba but they are still worth joining, you may find a few niche products from suppliers who do not post on Alibaba:

EC21
Global Sources
ETradeShow
Made-in-China.com
B2BAppareldirectory
Allproducts
Asian_Sources.com
Asian_Products.com
Global_Market.com

And couple of European communities for good measure:
Tradezone
bizeurope

Where our retail operations are concerned, we purchase nearly every product we sell from the Asian markets. The above trade communities will give you access to nearly every manufacturer and wholesaler in the region. Once again, I must stress ‘you have got to do your homework’ they will all expect payment up front, do not commit large sums of money until you are confident they are legitimate. Look for companies that are backed by well developed websites, most scammers will not take the time to build an impressive website just to steal a few bucks here and there. However, don’t be put off if their website is a little slow, this is sometimes caused by poor internet infrastructure between the continents.

Nearly 65% of global manufacturing takes place in Asia, by purchasing directly from Asian markets you have access to some of the least expensive prices on the planet.

Most advertisers will not display product prices; when you find a product that interests you, send a simple message asking for ‘sample’ and ‘quantity’ prices. Tell them what type of products you are interested in and ask them to also supply prices for any other products they manufacture that will suit your range. This way you may get offered other products without doing any further legwork. Furthermore, finding suppliers who can provide several product lines may reduce your shipping expenses.

Remember, a lot of these people are not natural English speakers, so keep your messages simple. Also remember that there is a time difference, be patient, allow them several hours to respond to your messages.

Technorati Tags: Global Trade, Product Sourcing, trade communities