You may want to consider buying stock direct from a manufacturer, this is called “buying factory direct”. Buying factory direct cuts out all the dramas and hard work associated with designing and manufacturing your own product from scratch. In fact the only issue you need to contend with is sourcing an appropriate manufacturer who can deliver a quality product in a timely manner. (Some tips on locating a suitable supplier will follow shortly.)

For those who are a little creative and or innovative you may even like to consider sourcing a supplier of products that can easily be personalised or repackaged to create your very own unique brand.  This concept works best with plain products.  Lets consider an example, you could source a “plain, ordinary t-shirt”, add, modify and or enhance the t-shirt with the amazing selection of, badges, fabric paints, buttons, sequins and accessories available in fabric and craft stores.  You could even consider designing your own “iron on transfer prints”. There are a number of products that can be personalise, repackage and sold as “designer ware”, you simply need to apply a little creative flair and imagination, and you too could have your own unique designer range, for example:

If you don’t posse a creative bone in your body don’t despair, you could always repackage a product or products to create an entirely different product range.  You could either buy a range of products, package the items as one, similar to a hamper and or you could buy one type of product and simply repackage it.  Lets consider the T-shirt example mentioned above. Assuming you did not alter the T-shirt in any way, you could consider selling 3 different coloured T-shirts in a small tin, perhaps a funky tin, shaped like a bus.  The bus would be brightly coloured with beautiful graphics, one for a boy and one for a girl. To be sure the product provides great value the product could be universal, the bus could be used as a toy when the T-shirts have been removed. The idea here centres on the form of packaging used, it is novel, attractive and versatile. Finally packaging can be used to enhance the products perceived value, a plain product can appear more expensive with the right complementary packaging.  In the exercise just discussed you would need to source a supplier of the tin buses and perhaps a separate supplier for the T-shirts. Packaging is an amazing tool that can be use to promote and sell the most simplistic products.

You could consider selling the stock that doesn’t sell in the mainstream retail shops.  Buying stock that doesn’t sell, sounds a little strange, so let me explain a little further.  There are many well known companies who for one reason or another have excess stock.  You could contact such businesses and offer to purchase their excess unsold stock at a discounted price of course. You may well claim “hang on if its excess stock, what chance have I got of selling it?”, every chance actually. Budding entrepreneurs who sell the excess stock of well known and branded products have realised, they can carve out a profitable niche market of consumers who value branded products but are not prepared to pay the full retail selling price.
 
Selling price can create many problems for many major “well branded” manufacturers. On some occasions they miss the mark, instead of pricing their products to appeal to their target market they over price and find they have out priced them selves out of the market.  So whilst it may seem unsold stock is unwanted stock it maybe that the target market does not see the value in the product at the price set by the supplier. Unfortunately for those with branded products they need to maintain their image and reputation, discounting the selling price devalues the brand, unless it occurs within an accepted stock clearance sale, such as the Christmas sales. This concept has been well tested, consider the number of direct factory outlets which have popped up over the past 3 years. This style of business would also successfully work for such products as designer perfumes, designer handbags and accessories etc,

Some mums have already established very successful at home business by buying designer children’s clothing from factory outlets in Europe then sell it here in Australia through either EBay party plan or on line, i.e. www.weepoppets.com.au.

The following are tips for locating manufacturers and suppliers plus a few websites that may be of assistance.

• Use the Internet; search engines such as, www.yahoo.com.au, www.sensis.com.au, and www.google.com.au are excellent.
  
  
• If you only want to deal with Australia based suppliers, always use the advance search function on the search engine website and ask it to return only web sites ending in “.au”.
  
  
• Don’t limit your search to one word try to use other words to describe what you are looking for, for example you may type in the search engine “chairs+wholesalers+suppliers”, this should return those relevant web sites for wholesale chair suppliers.
  
  
• Look in the yellow pages, perhaps even call a few possible suppliers they may be able to point you in the right direction if they do not deal in the particular product you are searching for.
  
  
• Some web sites are actually directories, and it will take a bit of searching around the web site to  find what you are looking for, take time to explore the web site.
  
  

Wholesalers generally hold a large product range of various unrelated and possibly licensed products.  Wholesalers deal directly with a host of manufacturers. Buying from a wholesaler is a very straightforward process, particularly if you don’t want to directly deal with the manufacturer yourself.  There may be some minimum order restrictions, you will need to ask the wholesaler about their limits and purchasing restrictions. You should shop around to ensure you get the best price, trading terms, warranties and so on, you may even consider using an international wholesaler. I would however suggest that you only deal with wholesalers that sell to other businesses not to the public. Be sure to deal with wholesalers who trade only with other businesses, it is pointless dealing with a wholesaler who trades directly with the general public as well.

If you type in the words “wholesaler directory” into any search engine on the Internet, you will soon find an amazing list of wholesalers for all kinds of products. If you already have a particularly product in mind I suggest you use the word in the search on wholesalers, i.e. you may type for example, “wholesaler + T-shirts”.The following are the contact details for a number of wholesalers;

A wholesale importer generally imports products at their own discretion. Some importers may import a specified product, however you would need to make such an arrangement with the importer, they may also charge a fee for this service. If there is a particular item you would like imported in and you have to cut as many corners to save on cash, then I would suggest you consider importing the goods yourself. Importers usually have a network of relationships all over the world; they are able to source all kinds of goods.

 

There are some great advantages gained from buying through an importer:

• They detail with all the red tape i.e. paper work, customs, freighters.
  
  
• They have a large network of contacts all over the world, they already have reliable suppliers, you don’t have to worry about finding a supplier in another country and or their credibility.
  
  
• You don’t have to deal with language barriers.
  
  
• You pay the one price per unit for stock, as opposed to having to pay for separate and various services required to import goods into Australia.
  
  

There is a great saying “another persons trash is another persons treasure” and it is very true indeed. There are some very successful small businesses specialising in the buying and selling of second hand goods. You could consider establishing a business that specialises in selling a category or a number of categories of pre-loved products such as “children’s toys”. Alternatively you may consider establishing a business that sells memorabilia and or a category of trinkets. Estates sales, garage sales and so on are an excellent means to source the stock necessary for this type of business, however you need to know what to look for. EBay is a perfect means to sell this type of product you could open up a store on EBay and resell to collectors and alike all over the world. I learnt the power of pre loved goods when I recently sold some “baby equipment”, on EBay. To my surprise I sold all the items I had posted, all pre loved, in good condition and for a tidy little sum indeed.  The key to reselling pre-loved items is to buy items in good condition at a low price. Consumers are not stupid especially bargain hunters; you don’t want to establish a business that has a reputation for selling junk.

You can usually obtain second hand goods from the following buying sources;

Deceased estates are usually auctioned at various auction houses, they are also advertised in newspapers.  After a little bit of research you will soon be able to identify the auction houses that have quality goods and those that don’t.

Surprisingly a lot of people still sell their unwanted goods through trash and treasure stalls on Saturdays and Sundays, at the local markets.  Again a great source to find stock as you can usually negotiate with the seller.  The sellers objective is to clear their unwanted goods as opposed to having to take them back home so as the buyer you have a bit of an upper hand.  Trash and Treasure markets are generally every weekend, you may like to contact your local council to find out the details of when, where and what time.

Local newspaper’s advertise when and where various garage sales are happening.  Ideally you should target the garage sales in the more affluent suburbs.  Again bargain with the seller, their objective is to clear the clutter from their home this gives you the ability to negotiate the price down.

Most second hand shops work on the basis of other peoples charity that is donations.   There are some people who would rather not undertake the exercise of selling their goods so they opt to simply donate these to charities. Some second hand shops can be quite expensive so be careful where you go.

Periodically the police will conduct auctions for unclaimed items.  These are a great means to source all kinds of stock and they are worth visiting just to see if there are in fact any bargains for your business.  You will need to contact your local police station to find out more information on these auctions.
 

Local governments and or councils will also conduct auctions.  The goods available through local government auctions can range from cars, office furniture, computer equipment to house hold items.  Some items are a result of an asset seizure, usually undertaken by the sheiff’s department when some one has not adhered to a court order.  You may want to check with your local council and or sheiffs office to see if such auctions are conducted in your state.