Mini Importation – How to Import Stuffs Online At Dead Cheap Prices

Mini Importation Business is Gold

I’ll try to make this Mini Importation post as brief as possible. No bluffs! If you are just learning about the business of ordering items cheap online (online mini importation), and reselling at three to five times the cost prices, I suggest you read the post about two to three times before taking action.

online mini importation

For now, welcome to “ Online Mini Importation Business

Again, because my wish is to make this report witty and straight to the point, I’ll be cutting the chase. Whatever I don’t talk about here, you probably would not need… Period!

If by chance, you need any further clarification, feel free to hit me up at the email address at the bottom of this post.

Let s roll…

What You Need

To successfully transact with the import portals I’ll be revealing in this post, you need to make these materials available first;

A means of making payment to the import portals – Not until recently, I’ve been using a debit ATM card issued by a Nigerian bank for all my payments online; yes, a Nigerian bank known as United Bank of Africa (UBA). The name of the card is UBA Africard.

Here’s what it looks like:

The card can be obtained from any branch of UBA. As at the time of producing this post, you don t need to be an account holder with the bank to apply for this card.

The card is of two types; the personalized and the non-personalized.

Simply go for the non-personalized so you get it instantly upon applying.

All you need is a valid identity which should be any of international passport, drivers license or national ID card (In line with the new CBN directive, I guess they should start accepting voters card now. Not sure!).

You also need a minimum of N500 (five hundred naira), though some of my students have claimed that they got their own without paying a dime.

This card has a 10 digit number at the back. This number serves as your account number. To fund the card, simple pay into the account number at the counter.

Addendum: I’ve also confirmed that the ATM cards from GTB, Fidelity, UBA and Zenith Banks are accepted on these import portals. I’ve personally used that of GTB, UBA and Fidelity and they worked perfectly well.

So, if you already have any, use it! No need going for the UBA Africard. Except you enjoy having a lot of cards in your wallet

That settles the payment issue.

The next thing you’ll need is…

A Valid Home Address – This is very important. Even though most courier companies would prefer to call you up to come pick up your item from their office, you need to make sure the address you use as your shipping address is easily traceable.

In case the item is sent to you address, you might end up not receiving your package if you supply an address like P.O. Box 4 Ikeja or so.

If you think your address is not traceable or you re not too sure about it, please use your office address or a friend s address that is ok.

Something like; No. 39 Johnbosco Ife Street, Off Allen Avenue, Ikeja Lagos is cool. Make it as much as traceable and reachable as possible!

Also make sure, you find a way of including your mobile phone number in the address. 99% of the time in my own case, they courier guys called me up on phone to come pick my package.

The Import Portals

Now, there are lots of portals out there that claim to sell items at cheap prices. While a handful of them are genuine, a good number are rippers and scam.

I’ll be saving you all the stress of verifying and ascertaining whether an import portal is worth doing business with.

Hence, will be showing you about 5 trusted import portals (I promised 4 in my sales letter right, but I’ll be giving you one more, if not even more)

It’s worthy of note that I’ve verified these portals and have used them successfully at one point or the other, as at the time of producing this post.

But because of the way things change, I advise you to also do you due diligent research before dealing with them.

Below are the websites I recommend;

  • Aliexpress.com is my favorite I do 50% of my shopping on Aliexpress. As a matter of fact, if you decide to focus on this website alone, you can still make a lot of money.
  • DealExtreme.com – Another great portal I use often! Next on my fav list. I do 40% of my shopping here. Please, hold yourself while surfing around this site, to avoid screaming to the extent of calling the attention of your neighbors.
  • Dhgate.com – Good, but I sparingly use this. Operates like Aliexpress.
  • Everbuying.com – Good one too!
  • iPmart.com – Best in phones, PC, Tablets.
  • Lightake.com
  • SourcingMap.com
  • GoodLuckBuy.com

Now, for the purpose of this post, I’ll be showing every illustration using Aliexpress and DealExtreme. Procedures in the other portals are almost the same, with slight differences.

Not to worry, they are little things common sense can put you through.

So, the first thing you do is to register at www.AliExpress.com

Aliexpress has made registration so easy that you can simply login with your Facebook account without creating a new account with Aliexpress. Your choice!

If you aren’t cool with that, you can hit the „ Join Free to create an account. It shouldn’t take up to 3 minutes, except you re mouse freight.

Upon successfully filling out your details and clicking on „ Create My Account’ you get a message like this one:

Time to rush to your email, open it and click on the link sent to you from Aliexpress.

If you see a page like this after clicking on the link, just know you re on point

 

At this point, you’re good to go!

Note: Like you read earlier, registration procedures in the other websites I gave are almost the same… maybe one or two variations!

Searching For Products & Verifying The Sellers

Remember, these portals are some sort of organized marketplaces, where individual sellers come together to showcase their products to the world.

Picture it like a shopping mall/complex, where different sellers have their separate shops/stores.

That’s why you could find a product sold at different prices by different sellers.

That goes to tell that, while others are selling their products at cheap rates, a whole lot are only middle men, who go to shop A, get a product for say $5 and list it in their own shop for $7. Don t blame them anyway…

And if that’s true, and you have access to all the shops in a portal, why look at the middleman?

Now, about searching for products… and making sure you weed off the middlemen;

Before you ever try to order from any of these websites, you ll want to make sure you bear the following in mind;

  • Compare prices and quality.
  • Check if there’s free shipping for the product. Even if there isn’t, don t worry I’ll show you my sneaky, almost illegal way to either knock it off entirely, or reduce it to the barest minimum.
  • Verify the seller so as to ascertain their past experience with their previous customers. Image illustration on this later.
  • Send a „ dummy message to the seller. I use this strategy to test the seller s customer service efficiency.

You may want to send messages like “ Are your products fake?”, Are you sure you’re going to send them if I order ?” Funny messages right? But they work magically!

The reason for this message is to simply work into the sellers psyche and test how fast they respond. The truth us, if someone takes time to respond to such attention grabbing messages when money hasn’t changed hands, that may invariably mean that the same person may NEVER respond to some of your messages after you order. Hard truth!

It may not always work, but it has worked for me in 85% cases.

Sellers that respond to such messages jovially, and try to explain things to you, turn out to be customer friendly. Once a seller responds, invite them to chat outside the import portal, like Skype and Gtalk. Aliexpress chats are always unstable. I hardly use it.

– Always make every payment through the recommended import website, usually credit/debit card, ATM, Western Union/Moneygram etc with their escrow payment option. More on escrow later.

I’ve had one or two instances where sellers requested that I pay them directly, maybe to their PayPal account directly, or via western union and promises to reduce the price of the product I wish to order for me. I understand that the import portals get a commission from every order made through their site, but paying the seller through any other means apart from the escrow option in the portal, puts you at risk. Avoid it!

If the transaction eventually turns sour, you might not be able to get back your cash. You’ll understand better later!

Okay, about the searching… let’s say, we want to buy an android from aliexpress.com

Here’s the result of my search:

Note the ticked boxes – “free shipping and Top rated”

And below is the result of the above search;

Now, if you look at the prices, you’ll notice they are damn cheap. Isn’t it? The first one is about $58.20 which is barely N9,280.

The next thing you’d do is to click on each of the results to further dig deep into the product and know more about the seller and the experiences of customers.

So, let s click on the first result;

From the image above, you will notice that the seller has got great positive feedbacks… 809, which is about 95.2%

He ships out within 4 days of ordering. You’ll also notice that the seller is online, so you could start up a live chat with him to find out more about the product and how it’s going to get to you.

The next thing you may want to do is to click on the feedback link on the page to read feedbacks,

You can see from what past buyers had to say, that this particular seller has nice great ratings, so fit to do business with. Settled?

Getting the “brother in-law price” Price & Free Shipping on 98% of Your Orders.

Chances are that you purchased this post because of this tip If that’s the case with you, I won’t disappoint you either.

Let s get down on it…

Getting sellers to relax their conditions is not difficult as many people think.

Now, all the products on these import portals are pre-tagged with specific fixed prices… but with much familiarity, you can get the sellers to either reduce their price or wave off the shipping fee. This trick works!

Here’s a little sneaky trick I use; it has proven to work 98% of the time.

Please, do not abuse it… it’s nothing black hat, but you can call it white hat.

Let’s go…

First, I get them to chat with me on Skype… this portrays some level of seriousness in you. They start to wonder why this buyer has opted for something a little bit different. “He/she could be a serious buyer” they wonder!

Be friendly with them… crack jokes and try to develop personal relationship with them. If possible, ask for their phone numbers, yes call them if you can!

I tell them I m a wholesaler in my country, and that I am new to Aliexpress (or any of the portals!), hence, looking for trusted suppliers who will be able to do serious business with me at favorable prices. (The „new to Aliexpress stunt drives them nuts!)

Tell them how there’s great demand for their product in your country, and that you’re currently trying out a couple of sellers on the import website…

Whoever sells to you favorably automatically wins your heart and becomes your lifelong supplier.

Just tell them you are interested in their product… and if they can promise to serve you favorably, you can forget every other seller you ought to have contacted and order from them.

At this point, the seller should say YES… we’re ready to serve you. Fine!

Ask them if they can reduce the price for you (if the product comes with free shipping already) or knock off the shipping fee for you (if you re okay with the product price)

Because of the picture you painted (wholesaler in your country, and that’s what you intend to be… isn’t it?), they will likely want to make you a lifelong customer.

Hence, may want to relax their conditions to win you over.

Now, don’t expect to win on every case using this method. At times, you may find stubborn sellers stick to their conditions. In such case, you either dance to their tune or move to the next shop. Remember, there are thousands of them in each of the portals.

The truth is, if you do your homework well, build a tight rapport with the seller, you must get some sort of discounts from the original price.

Let s look at another example, a product that requires you to pay shipping fee.

You find a product that comes with some shipping fee… (Shipped through either DHL, FedEx or EMS!)

In most cases, except when you’re talking about high priced products, the cost of shipping a product through any of these aforementioned means, is always greater than the cost of the product itself.

In that case, here’s what you do to have the product shipped free to you…

Note: I can guaranty that you’ll get free shipping for all products that come with some shipping fee, but won’t guaranty that 100% of the time, you’ll get your item shipped free via any of DHL, FedEx or EMS.

Get that?

Free shipping all the time, but must not be shipped via any of DHL or EMS.

You know the reasons already!

The costs of sending via DHL, FedEx or EMS is higher… and except either you’ve built a tight relationship with the seller or you’re buying a good number of their products; they’ll always be slow to give a nod to your free shipping request via any of these means. It’s understood!

The truth is, almost all the sellers in these portals (especially Aliexpress) would easily ship your goods to you for free via any other means apart from DHL, FedEx and EMS… if you use the sneaky trick I talked about earlier very well.

Let’s look at a practical case study of mine… I wanted to order this for my woman!

It’s a fine simple lady s candy clutch bag… but goes with a shipping cost via

EMS.

I got the seller chatting with me, and requested that she wave the shipping fee.

Within few minutes of our chat, she agreed to send the items for free, but via China Post (which should not take lesser than 14 days!)

But because I wanted the items to get to us faster, I pressed on to have the bags sent via EMS.

Then after about 8 minutes of our jovial chats later, she relaxed her conditions, which favored me greatly.

She finally agreed to send my items free via EMS if the sum total of my order is up to $300. Condition right?

I quickly, ordered and in exactly 5 days, I received the orders.

What’s more…?

I got all my subsequent orders shipped to me via EMS for free, even when my total order isn’t up to $300. Ha ha ha ha!

$37.24/bag EMS shipping fee for each of the $4.89 bags waved!

Lesson : Building rapport and business relationship first, make the big difference guys! Do it!

Thanks to my sneaky method.

Now, upping the total sum of your order might not be the thing with every seller. The tempo might change with different sellers, depending on the business rapport.

That settles the tip on getting the brother-in-law price and getting free shipping!

Escrow – What the Heck Is It?

A lot of people get the idea of escrow wrong!

Escrow is not a standalone company or so per se… It’s only a third party trust arrangement, which serves to protect the buyer and the seller.

It’s an arrangement by the owners/operators of the import portal whereby funds are held by a third party (them) until it receives the appropriate instructions, or obligations have been fulfilled.

Let me explain further;

Say you wish to order for a product on an import portal. You pay for it and your payment is received and held by escrow (never released to the seller) pending when you confirm the receipt of the item you bought.

Once you receive the item, what you do is to come back to the site, click on

“item received” or something in that line and the funds will be released to the seller.

If perchance you do not receive the item, you simply complain (open a dispute) and your money will be returned to your account after settling the dispute.

If also the item received doesn’t meet your expectation, you complain, send the item back and have your cash returned to you.

No stories… no regrets!!!

This arrangement not only removes the fear of being scammed, but also create credibility and makes the sellers to be extra careful with the kind and quality of products they offer.

It’s important to point out that escrow is neither a company nor a site like many people think.

“THANKS FOR THIS REPORT SIR. PLEASE I JUST TRIED TO TAKE A LOOK

AROUND ESCROW HOME PAGE, ESPECIALLY THEIR REGISTRATION PAGE AND DISCOVER NIGERIA IS NOT AMONG THE LIST. HOW WILL ONE GO ABOUT THE REGISTRATION

IN OTHER TO AVOID MISTAKE. THANK YOU AND GOD BLESS YOU ”

The above email is one of the many I receive from people, who have tried to sign up for escrow at one site or the other. Funny!

For our purpose here, escrow is in built in the import portals…

Once you register with any of the import portals, you re automatically qualified to use their escrow whenever you make an order.

It’s only an arrangement by the portal owners to safeguard their customers and keep a clean sheet, making both the sellers and customers happy at the end.

All the import portal mentioned earlier have escrow payment arrangements, though may vary in operation and name.

Making Payments With Your ATM Card

Making payments to these import portals are as easy as ABC.

Like you read earlier, you can use your normal ATM card issued by your bank, so long it has MasterCard or Visa logo on it. Verve won t work!

With your card ready, keep your eyes on the following details:

Your card should have the following;

Card Number – this is the 16 digit number in front of your card.

Name on card – this is the name inscribed on your card, or in the case of non personalized UBA Africard, the name provided while opening the account.

Expire date – the expiry date of your card, usually written in this format 11/14. That’s the expiry month and year.

CVV/security code – this is the last 3 digit number the right hand side of the back of your card.

Billing Address – This is the address supplied when opening the account associated with your card. Do not confuse this with your shipping address. Except both are the same.

With all these details ready, you can proceed to making your payment for your item.

So to make payments, simply add the item(s) you want to order to cart, and then click on the „ Buy Now link; or whatever name it goes by on the portal you’re dealing ordering from.

If you re on Aliexpress, upon successfully clicking on the „Buy Now link, you ll be taken to a page that looks like the one on the next page.

If you and the seller have agreed in any form of price adjustment or so, after clicking on „Buy Now, just before you pay… you will need to contact the seller with the „Order No so he can effect the price adjustment.

Once that is done, you can then continue with the payment.

On the next page, you’ll be prompted to choose the type of card you want to use for payment, (let’s say we’re using our UBA Africard visa card) and then put in your card details; and hit „Pay My Order

Upon successful payment, you will instantly receive an email acknowledging your payment.

In few days time from ordering, the item will be packaged and shipped. Then, you’ll receive another email from this Aliexpress or any of the portals given:

That’s it guys… Simple right?

For that of DealExtreme, it’s pretty simple. Almost the same thing.
Once your goods are shipped, you receive an email which will bear the tracking details. These details will help you keep track of the movement of your item.

So, in the next chapter, we’ll be looking at how to track shipments and confirm delivery.

Tracking Shipment, Confirming Delivery & Opening Dispute.

Once your payment is received, verified and withdrawn from your bank account, the next step is to package your order and ship out.

Even before you order, the packaging and „ship out time is clearly stated for each product. Except this time is exceeded, there’s absolutely no point contacting the seller.

Also, within this „packaging and ship out time, you can cancel the order. This can be used in cases, whereby you re no longer interested in the order or you want to make some changes.

For Aliexpress, the email that bears the tracking details gives you further directives on how to go about the tracking.

You’ll be given a site to input your tracking ID to get details about the movement of your product.

If for any reason you experience any issues tracking your order, just contact the seller and have him explain.

Once your item arrives, and it meets your expectation, you will need to login to your import portal, open up the order in question and click on „Confirm Order Received or thereabout.

Make sure to inspect the goods received, and certify them okay before clicking on the order confirmation link, as this action is irreversible!

However, if by chance the item falls short of what you expect or what was advertised, all you do is to contact the seller to demand explanations.

Most of the time, the seller will love you guys to settle amicably, because if he doesn’t and you leave a bad review of him, it will affect his rating and subsequent sales. He may decide to compensate you on your next order… either by adding additional items or sending your next order via DHL for free

However, if the seller is adamant and proving stubborn, proceed to clicking on “Open Dispute in the case of Aliexpress, to report.

If you open a dispute, your case will be looked into and decided based on the facts you provide. This is where you can quote all your correspondences with the seller, even before the order was made.

If the seller laid claim of anything about his product that later turned out to be lie, say it and give proofs.

If judged in your favor, which would likely be the case if you present your case with facts, you ll be required to return the item and have your money refunded to your card with 5 working days.

In the case of items not received, contact the seller first. Then, if he s not helping matters, contact the site admin with your tracking number. They’ll track the item themselves, and settle the matter for your guys.

Never be tempted to use this method as a way to dubiously get your money back after receiving your ordered item. If you dare, you’ll be caught pants down and your account terminated.

For DealExtreme, the tracking is done right on their site. You just click on tracking and every information you need is displayed right on the site. No need to visit external websites.

Here’s a screenshot showing the tracking details of an order I placed recently.

In the case of problems tracking your order on DealExtreme, you contact the DealExtreme support, as you cannot contact the seller directly on deal extreme.

Chat up their customer service via the „LIVE HELP link on their site with your order number, and they’ll give you every explanation you need.

Drop shipping – What Does It Mean

Drop shipping is a supply chain management technique in which the retailer does not keep goods in stock, but instead transfers customer orders & shipment details to either the manufacturer or a wholesaler, who then ships the goods directly to the customer.

The retailer benefits from selling products to customers, without possibly seeing the products.

The only thing you need to do is to get the orders from wholesalers/retailers, and in turn place the orders on the import portals. Customers will receive the ordered products directly from the import portal.

Here’s How Drop Shipping Works;

John logs into one of the import portals and finds a product he thinks a wholesaler would be interested in, at the price of $64

Let’s say John succeeds in convincing the customer to buy the goods for $94 plus $10 shipping and handling.

The customer pays John $104 for the order. John logs onto the import portals, orders the product and routes the shipping information directly to the seller, and ensures that the order is shipped on time.

John is billed for the wholesale price of the product and shipping cost, which are $63 and $10 respectively. Since John passed the shipping cost onto his customer, he has made $31 profit on this one order. Great job John!

But in the above case, John is required to do this with his money right?

What if John doesn’t have money but has this drop shipping idea and how he can make money with it?

Here’s what John might want to do…

Say John finds another product that sells for $3.5 (That’s about N560) each on one of the import portals, let s call this product X.

John meets Tope who agrees to pay him N1,200 for each… (mind you, product X sells for N2,500 wholesale price in Nigeria)

Okay, let’s say Tope orders for 200 pieces… and to gain her trust, John tells her to pay half of the total cost and balance up upon delivery.

So she pays you half of N1200 x 200 = N240,000

Half = N120,000

Now to get 200 pieces of that from the import portal, John will spend N560 x 200 = N112,000

John simply orders for the goods, keeps track online and once its delivered, Tope balances up and John ends up making a profit of N128,000!

I think you grab the gist now huh?

How then can you apply this in the real world and make more profits for yourself?

I’ll be explaining that when I talk about “How to Market Your Product Even without a Website” shortly.

Some Hot-in-Demand Products That Can Make You Real Money Fast

Hey my soon to be mini import rock star!

Don t be deceived…

Android, blackberry phones and laptops are not the only items you can buy from these import portals.

As a matter of fact, even though you can get these items at freaking cheap prices on these import portals, they’re certainly not only the set of products that will make you the real money we’ve been talking about, as far as mini importation business is concerned.

Please, read that again and let it sink!

I see a lot of people… post everywhere online how you can buy blackberry phones, laptops etc at cheap prices. Fine; that’s true.

Of course, they may be making some bucks off it, but seriously… these guys are leaving a lot of money on the table.

You can virtually import everything except human parts (LOL…) from these import portals.

Here, I’ll be listing about 10 products that are evergreen, and will be forever in hot demand.

The first 5 of them are inexpensive products you can start importing even with less than N10,450… (as promised on my website). These products are not only in hot demand; also importing them will not leave a big hole in your pocket.

The rest of the products in the list might somewhat require a bigger capital to start, but are also hot in demand and can make you real money real fast if you play your game well.

However, if you’re just starting out and have limited capital, I will advice you start with the first 5 products, and advance later.

The Inexpensive Product ;

1. Phone accessories – You cannot only get mobile phone accessories at ridiculously insane prices, but can sell them off fast.

My 22 year old protégé started his mini importation business from importing blackberry covers, and selling in bulk to all these roadside phone accessory sellers.

Phone covers: Needless I say that phone covers sell like pure water these days. Don t be deceived by the cheapness, that’s where the profit lies.

Here s the link => http://www.aliexpress.com/item/Free-Shipping-10pcs-lot-Mesh-Net-

Hard-Back-Cover-Cell-phone-Mobile-Phone-Case-For-Blackberry/499498586.html This seller is even ready to ship it to you for free via EMS:

Here s the link => http://www.aliexpress.com/item/Mobile-Phone-Case-Gel-TPU- Skin-Cover-Case-for-blackberry-9900-9930-Free-Shipping/494812743.html

Solar chargers are hot!

The link => http://www.aliexpress.com/item/1Pcs-Solar-USB-AC-Power-Portable-

Charger-for-Cell-Mobile-Phone-MP3-Camera-Free-shipping-Drop/574491934.html

Find more mobile phone solar chargers at the link below

=> http://www.aliexpress.com/wholesale?Sea rchText=solar+charger&catId=0&manual=y

And here => http://dx.com/s/solar+charger.html?GPrice=1.00&LEPrice=26.00 Phone screen protectors:

The last time I bought a screen protector for my blackberry bold 5, I paid about N400…

But here, you can get 20 pieces at N1,232 ($7.7), which amount to about N60 per piece. Even if you sell at N150 to retailers, you ll still end up making over 100% profits.

Find cheaper mobile phone screen protector here http://www.aliexpress.com/wholesale/wholesale-screenprotector.html?CatId=509&manual=y&pvId=200000719-200002471

Phone batteries:

Blackberry bold 5 battery sells for about N5,000 in Nigeria. That’s if you’re lucky to get the original. But this seller is selling his for $12.96 (N2073)

http://www.aliexpress.com/item/J-M1-JM1-Battery-For-BlackBerry-Bold- 9790-Curve-9380-Bold-Touch-9900-9930-Torch-9860/551855179.html

Don t mind the shipping fee there… Use the tips I talked about earlier and you’ll be fine.

Memory cards:

Here’s a 4 gig memory card for only $5.99 – See it

32GB Memory card for N14.99 – click here

2. Computer accessories – Multi USB Cables for only $2.4

Click here to check it out on DealExtreme page.

Bluetooth Adapter:

I once ordered 100 pieces of this from this link at $1.80 (about N288) and sold to a computer shop owner in Owerri at N370.

Mouse: Check out see how much you can get fine mouse for http://dx.com/s/mouse

Webcams: http://dx.com/s/webcams

  1. Jewelries – Dealing on Jewelries alone can make your account officer quietly invite you to teach him/her your secret. Teach him but charge him heavily!

See;

That’s from Aliexpress. Here s the link to get it.

Get it here.

Get it here

This one is a Charming White Stainless Steel Lady’s Crystal Quartz Wrist

Watch for only $6.15. Get it here

Follow this link for more jaw dropping cheap jewelries you can import now and make big cash from.

  1. Watches – I shouldn’t have included this o! This product alone has made me more money in 3 months than the annual salaries of most bankers.

I know of another guy in Lagos who s banking it big importing and selling only watches.

And guess what?

This guy started selling just from his Facebook fan page… only got an office recently. Take a look at his website www.watchlocker.net and see how much he sells his watches.

When it comes to importing watches that people will rush and buy from you… I’ll recommend two links to sellers I’ve been buying from for some time now.

Both of them are from DealExtreme.

I ran into this watch by accident… reluctantly, I bought one for myself.

By the time it came back, almost every guy that saw it on me fell in love with it and were ready to buy it for N10,000 to N15,000… (a glaring indication that it’s going to make a good market)

Finally, I sold it for N12,000

Ever since then, I’ve been ordering this watch in hundreds and selling off at N8,500 per piece to a watch seller in my neighborhood.

Here’s the link, in case if you wish to get it too.

The other one is a lady s watch I just got for my woman.

That’s $4.58, which is equivalent to N730 or so

Now, how much do you think such watch will go for in an average Nigerian fashion shop?

As a matter of fact, I spoke with a watch dealer in Nigeria about buying this same watch in bulk from me, and she gladly agreed to pay me N2,200 per piece.

That’s to say that, if I end up selling 100 pieces of this same watch to this lady, I would have made 100 x 1,470 (N2,200 – N730)

That’s a whooping N147,000 cool cash… (you can do this over and over in a month, right from your computer or cyber cafe)

Here s the link to the watch.

The above images are the result of a search I just did on Aliexpress…

It brought forward some nice sexy watches. Follow this link to see it. Here are some of them;

These are the same watches the likes of which Watch locker and co sell for hundreds of thousands.

5. Other Inexpensive Importable Products – I’ll be grouping every other inexpensive products you can import to make quick cash here.

Ladies Brazilian Hair: – Click here to see for yourself.

Follow this link to see more.

Body electronic massager – Gym houses go gaga for this one. All you need do is to get some samples, then contact gym operators and have them introduce their customers for a commission.

Under $2 hot in demand gadgets – http://dx.com/gift-ideas/Under5

Under $10 gadgets – http://dx.com/gift-ideas/5to10

The Slightly Expe nsive Products ;

  1. Women s beauty products – Like Bags, Shoes, Hair, Jewelries etc
  2. Blackberry Phones – When the price of blackberry bold 5 was about N90,000 in Nigeria, I got mine for N57,000.

If you’re looking at the business side of it, I’ll advise you stick with the low cost blackberry phones, like curve 2 and 3. They sell more!

My Best & Cheapest Blackberry Stores => Store 1 | Store 2 | Store 3

  1. Android phones – Android phones sell very well too. Just got this one for myself

Link 1 | Link 2 | Link 3 |

  1. Home Accessories – Like washing machine, yam pounder etc.

Link here

  1. Wears/Clothings – Link 1 | Link 2 | Link 3 | Link 4 | Link 5 | Link 6

How To Market Your Products Even Without A Website

It will almost amount to a total waste of time and resources if you succeed in importing stuff at dead cheap prices and end up getting stuck with distributing and selling them off to make profit.

As a matter of fact, any serious importer would want to make sure there’s a market already for his/her products even before s/he imports.

That’s why in this chapter, I ll be handing you some fail proof methods to sell your imported products even without a website.

Yes, without a website!

Let s go…

Facebook :

How many times have you logged on to Facebook to find people advertising stuff by the right hand side of your screen?

In case you don t know? Many of these guys that advertise their business on Facebook do not even have an office!

Yes, they sell their stuff right from their Facebook fan page.

Okay, let me give examples of people doing it right here in Nigeria…

Cheapest Original BlackBerry Phones For Nigerians:

That dude imports refurbished original blackberry and sell for as low as 7k to people via his fan page.

Don t ask me where and how he imports them… I won’t even tell you to go put on your goggles and re-read page 7

What about this big time watch seller that owns watchlocker.net?

He s a close friend… and has been selling watches on his fan page for over a year before getting a physical office in Lagos recently.

How do they do this?

Simple!

A simple Facebook fan page which is free, then promote it with Facebook ads

Let s say you wish to sell something like Android, what you do is to create something like „Cheap Android Phones For Nigerians, advertise it to get targeted fans to it, and then sell to the fans of your page using simple status updates.

Simple right?

First, you create Facebook fan page. Here’s the link to create one. It’s free!

The next thing you would want to do is to adorn it with nice timeline cover and profile images.

Check out the “ Cheapest Original BlackBerry Phones For Nigerians ” to see how it looks.

You can have a graphic artist do that for you… or better still outsource the whole of the fan page creation to folks on fiverr for just $5.

This fiverr gig is just perfect for that http://fiverr.com/tiriinx/create-afacebook-fan-page

For help on how to pay to fiverr, you can talk to me at the email address at the bottom of this post. I could help!

Once your fan page is ready, the next thing is to get targeted fans to join your page, using paid Facebook ads.

Yes, spend some money here. It’s not only worth it, but the fans of your page become your loyal customers forever.

Another way to get fans to your page is to search around Facebook for pages with good number of fans – from 30k fans upwards. Contact their admin and pay them to have your message with your page link attached posted on their wall.

This way, you get a lot of people to join your page.

However, if you re going to be using the paid status update method, you may want to create a tab/app like this to make sure you convert more of those visiting your page from the other page to fans.

With simple status updates, you can keep advertizing your products and have your fans buying lots of them.

Here’s what I mean;

As you can see, some fans are happy with those sellers that they have to even share/recommend the products to their friends. Viralish!

Basically, all you need to do is to build relationship with your fans, gain their trust and no one will bother if you have office or not.

I bet you, if you have sizable number of fans and you’re really serious, you’ll be doing sales of over 30 to 100 pieces of your product monthly… get your calculator to work mate!

It’s doable; seriously!

Now, even if you’re making only N1,000 profit from selling a product, you net N300,000 selling 300 pieces of that product.

Now, how many of our employees with masters degrees make that much

You can do same…

This is the same strategy used by the likes of Taj hair to sell hundreds and hundreds of their hair products to their over 90k fans without any physical office. Here’s their fan page https://www.facebook.com/tajhair

What about my Abuja based client, Miss Bassey who sells bio Life Slim, a weight loss product on her fan page here at N25,000 per piece?

No physical office whatsoever… fans place orders from their fan page and they have their goods delivered to them.

Now, how can we apply the drop shipping method we talked about earlier to this?

You already know what drop shipping is all about… Remember, one of the reasons I recommended the use of fan page is to build relationship and trust.

So once that’s in place, you can simply take orders from your fans and drop ship it directly to their address. You take orders from them, order for it on the import portals and have the item delivered directly to them, without you even seeing it.

However, you must ensure to have the expedited courier cost covered so they get the item faster, and never have to wait a long time.

That’s about using Facebook to sell your stuff.

Let s look at another method, which is;

Selling To The Sellers :

This method works like gangbusters too!

Let me illustrate this method with ladies hair.

What you do is to approach ladies hair sellers for example.

First, study their products (hair) and ask them how much they sell.

Come back to any of the sites given in this post and search for that particular hair.

90% chances are that you get the products from the sites at prices 3 to 5 times cheaper.

The next thing you may want to do is to go back to the seller again, and ask him how much s/he will be willing to buy the same products from you in bulk.

Remember, they’re in business, hence want to make more money. So, they willingly will take you up… sometimes, may demand samples, but this does not always happen.

Once an agreement is reached, get the products from the portal at stupid prices, and sell it to them at a cheaper price.

That’s all…

Selling phone accessories (pouch, casing, covers etc) and inexpensive products with this method is easy.

You only need to strive to make the first deal successful, and you have a lifelong customer who will always want you to supply more.

The Bait Or Other People’s Money (OPM) Method :

I talked about this method in my sales page. It involves throwing in baits retailers cannot resist.

To perfect this method, I recommend you get a sample of the product you wish to sell to them first. Yes, go order for 2 to 5 pieces as samples.

With your sample copies, approach the sellers and ask them how much they could buy the product in bulk from you.

Let s say the product goes for N500/piece at the import portal.

The seller agrees to pay N1500/piece…

The next thing is to bring in the kicker. Tell the seller you’re ready to supply the items to them at N1000/piece on one condition.

… And that condition should be that they pay half or one-third of the money in advance, depending on how much profit you’re going to be making and balance up once goods are delivered. Just make sure the amount they pay in advance covers the cost of importing the stuff.

If they agree to pay you half of the money for example (which is N750), you simply go and place order for the product… and make some profits (N250) even before the product arrives and you getting the balance.

Seriously, don’t expect this method to be an easy ride. It requires some sort of preaching and packaging… you can always add your own twist to widen your chances.

In my case, one in about twelve persons took me up on this method.

The idea should be, if you’re just starting and looking to raise some funds to finance your importation business, this method fits in.

It should work best on people you already have some sort of relationship with – your colleagues, friends, family members etc.

I earlier called it, OPM… other peoples money!

Kill & Divide Method :

Lol! This method is a straight forward one.

It involves importing your stuff, take it to a seller who has a shop already, reach an agreement with him/her to sell off your stuff and allow him/her part with the lion share.

Say, you import a product for N500/piece and decide to sell it for N2,500/piece.

Profit = N2000 right?

Just tell the seller to give you N1000 on each copy sold, and explain to him you need to sell them off fast to raise cash.

Which means that even if the seller ends up selling each piece for N3,500… he still pays you your N1000.

Crazy right?

The jerk is; because you offered him the lion share, he will stop at nothing to sell off the stuff and make more gain, not knowing that you re also comfortably making 100% profit even without sweating for the marketing.

This was the same strategy I used to sell over 200 copies of this watch I imported from DealExtreme.

The ‘Pick Up Point’ Method :

This method is a kind of a twist to the Facebook method.

It involves arranging with a shop owner… (What they sell doesn’t matter. What should matter is the PROXIMITY of the shop), drop your products with them, maybe for a small commission, from where buyers can come to pick them up.

Somehow, some people might not be too cool with paying and having their order sent to them via courier, especially when you’re doing business with them for the first time.

So, from your Facebook fan page, you can refer them to go pick up the product from your point of collection.

That’s all.

Get A Shop :

Yes, if the money starts rolling in and piling up, get a shop! And if you’re already engaged with other things, get a shop keeper.

I don t even need to tell you that you’ll be making double, if not triple of what you’ve been making (without a shop) if you finally get a shop.

No wonder my watch seller friend got his shop after over a year of selling only from his fan page.

Now, a watch he would have sold for N45,000 from his fan page can easily be sold for N50,000 to N60,000 at the shop.

That’s it!

Receiving Your Goods & Making the Postman Your Friend

Well, receiving your items is the easiest and the sweetest thing I’ve noticed about this business… because even if we end up buying stuff at cheap prices and they don t get delivered to us, that will amount to total bullsh*t.

Depending on the courier service you use, your item could either be delivered to your house by the courier company or you might be called upon on phone to come and pick it up from their office.

I’ve noticed that whenever I use any of China Post, Hong Kong post, my package gets to the local post office (NIPOST). And what they normally do is to call me on phone to come pick it up.

But, if my orders are sent via any of FedEx, EMS or DHL, 90% of the time, they bring it to my house.

So, to make sure my packages are always safe… I found a way of befriending the last person my package gets to before I get it.

I get their numbers and then try to chip them something whenever I have a package.

By that, they handle my packages with preference and try to ensure they are in safe hands… because they know I treat them right.

That’s all.

Make More Money Teaching People Your Importation Ideas

Now, ordering these items and reselling them here is a cool way to make lots of money from online mini importation business…

But the truth is;

That is not the only way to make money from this idea. You can as well organize small seminars, workshop or even a one on one coaching to teach people how to order from these portals.

I know a lady here in Nigeria who charges as high as N45,000 to N75,000 per participant showing people these same secrets in seminars. I reliably gathered that she has never recorded below 40 participants in each of the seminars. Use your calculator my dear. Mine just busted into flames!

I’m even planning on throwing such a seminar pretty soon

Still contemplating on it though…

But if I finally decide to do one, seats are going to be limited, because I hate that thing called CROWD.

However, you might just want to check here to see if any is available and maybe reserve your seat before anyone else.

Maybe, we can even partner and pull up one in your area if you like.

Or better still, you might even want to be a reseller of this post you’re reading… yes, for purchasing this post, I can create a system so you sell it and we split profit 50:50.

I tell you, it’s damn easy to sell 200 copies in a month… and if that’s true, that means you’ll be pocketing half of

200 x N4,920 = 984,000 = N492,000 pure profit!

Interested, hit me up on the number at the bottom & I’ll set the ball rolling!

Miscellaneous

How You Can Pay For The Shipping FEE Yourself From Your End

There’s the need to add this tip here because of the many requests from my clients.

First, I want you to understand that the sellers on these import portals whom you buy goods from are NOT the owners of courier companies like DHL, UPS, EMS, FedEx etc.

There are also cases of some sellers charging you higher than the courier company charges. If you feel a seller wants to take advantage of you, here’s how you can pay for the shipping fee from here, and leave the seller with no option than to ship your goods to you.

Tell the seller your mind, if he reconsiders and make the shipping means and the cost favorable to you, then stick with him and conclude the deal. But if he doesn’t comply, then tell him that you will like to take care of the shipping fee payment yourself.

Ask him/her to supply you the weight size of your goods.

Decide which of the courier company to use, and also make sure they have an office in the same area where the seller is located.

Next thing you do is to log in to the courier company s website (Google is your friend!), and contact them.

Tell them you want them to ship your goods from the location of purchase, and supply them with the weight. With the weight, they should be able to tell you the cost of shipping your good down to you.

You can also visit the courier company s local office in your area if you like.

Go ahead and pay the shipping cost, they will generate an invoice for you.

Next, go back to you seller and make payment for your goods, without the shipping fee

Supply the seller with the invoice details. Once your goods are shipped, the shipping company will send you email containing your tracking code.

PS: This method is ideal for those who buy in bulk, and should only be used in extreme cases. Do remember to keep a copy of your correspondence with the courier company.

Why You MUST Always Make Payment Through The Import Portals’ (escrow) And NEVER Directly To The Seller.

You may come across a seller who would suggest you pay him/her directly (bypassing the escrow arrangement), while promising to reduce the price of the product for you.

Do not ever engage in such a thing. If you do, and there’s any problem with your transaction, your money will be gone. Always insist you pay via the import portals. The escrow arrangement in these import portals guarantees your safety, and will always help you get your money back in case there’s any problem.

Always Choose Hong Kong & Singapore Before China Post.

As at the time of writing this post, Chinese government is trying to stiffen their custom policies. Hence, items sent via China post take longer than normal.

So, insist your seller ships your orders via any of HK or Singapore posts instead of China post.

Note that, Hong Kong post, Singapore post and China post are in the same level.

How To Avoid Paying Custom Duties.

Custom starts looking into your items if shipped in bulk. To avoid this, ask the seller to ship them in batches. Also, tell the sellers to declare them as gift items, so you don t pay custom dues.

How To Get Chinese Companies To Brand Their Products With Your Name.

Branding sets you or your company apart. To have your name or your company s name branded on your products, simply contact the seller and request for it.

Normally, if you re going for bulk orders, you get it free, otherwise, you pay small fee for it.

This is the same trick used by the likes of Ogbuawa, Udekings etc to get their names on their products like motorcycles and generators. Don t let them know I told you

Some More Steps To Determine A HOT In Demand Products. Simple… spy the big players!

Go to local merchant sites like; Jumia.com.ng, Taafoo.com, Konga.com, Dealdey.com and check what people are buying.

  • Jumia calls them Top Selling Products
  • Taafoo says they re What Others Are Buying
  • Konga has it on their homepage as top sellers

The point is; having an idea of what people are buying places you in a good position to know what to import that are likely to sell.

Conclusion

If you can’t fly then run…” – Martin Luther King Jr. said

Now, that you ve known the secret, won t you start your own mini importation business importing something in hot demand right away?

Something that will sell fast… and will make you quick profits?

You’re probably thinking of what product to start with right?

Okay, I’ll give you an idea…

No, I’ve changed my mind. I won’t tell you!

However, here’s what I suggest you do…

Scroll up to the first page of this post… read to the page before this very one. Make sure you don t read to this very page

… but frankly, even if you do not want to do the retail selling yourself, you can still sell in bulk to the sellers and make your cash.

Can you see the price of the virgin Brazilian hair – $19.99?

How much did you pay for that same product the last time?

 

This is exactly what these guys here do –

https://www.facebook.com/tajhair https://www.facebook.com/junaprin

They get all their clients from Facebook like I showed you earlier!

You too can do better!

What about these guys here –

http://www.facebook.com/WatchLocker http://www.facebook.com/RedluxeWatches

They buy all those gorgeous watches you see around from here http://aliexpress.com/activities/watches/index.html and other places, and resell to you at big prices.

Go start something now….

We want to read your success story very soon. I so love changing lives

Testimonials make me feel like a king… please, don’t fail to let me read yours as soon as possible.

And if there is anything that would ever stand on your way to the top, don’t hesitate to let me read them on my email at [email protected]

I will be glad not just to help you, but to help you right

Thanks for your time,

Sincerely, Johnbosco Ife

This post was inspired by Patrick Ogidi (Grand Commander of Mini Importation Business in Nigeria)

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