How To Find Wholesale Buyers For Import Goods
Looking to resell products for profit, and start your own brand? You’ve come to the right place.
If you’re looking for a lucrative business, importing wholesale is a risky—but achievable. Many people get into this business, only to find out it’s not as easy as it sounds. There are several steps to take, and patience will be the key. Also, extensive research, resources, and knowledge will come into play to make your journey smooth.
Want to know a secret? Many entrepreneurs use tools that aren’t very known or considered. Many people try to cut corners, which can hurt you in the end. Importing wholesale means buying overseas, notably China, and trying to take the easy road may result in being scammed, ultimately losing hard-earned money.
The solution is using sophisticated platforms, such as ImportKey. With Importkey, you get up-to-date import and export trade data that will give you the confidence to make transactions overseas. Then, you can resell for a profit!
Read on to find out how you can import wholesale, how to use our platform, be confident starting your new business, and find wholesale buyers for import goods.
Importance of Import and Export Data
You might be wondering, what does import and export trade data have to do with importing wholesale? It has everything to do with it!
When you’re doing business overseas, there are legal transactions that occur, which is documented in a database.
The “Bill of Lading” is the documentation of all the details, from cargo description, quantity, ports, etc. It means a legal action occurred between two entities, meaning they are as real as they come.
Being exposed to this information will lessen your chances of getting scammed, and gives you the confidence to do business overseas. With Importkey, you get this type of information in seconds, and time is money!
How to Find Wholesale Suppliers using Alibaba
If you want to hang out with the big bosses, Alibaba is where to go for your wholesale supplier needs. It is the number one site for wholesaling, and working directly with Chinese companies. You can work with other countries too, but for a chance at high-profit margins, Chinese wholesalers and manufacturers are the way to go.
When you head to the homepage, there are two options: Products and Suppliers. Choose Suppliers, then enter any product. For this demonstration, we’ll use “diffuser”, which is a hot item!
Instantly we’re met with over 3,000 suppliers, but let’s just choose the first one and see what they’re made of.
Below, we have clicked the lone picture of the “400ml Aromatherapy.”
Above, we see there are three different colors, we see the quantity, estimated time if we want to private label the product, payment options, and more.
Let’s head over to Amazon and see if any diffusers look like the above photo. Alibaba is extremely popular, to the point that you will always spot their items on Amazon.
On the first page of Amazon’s search for “diffuser 400ml”, we see SEVERAL products that look exactly like the one we found on Alibaba.
This was to show that Alibaba does present profitable opportunities, but finding out who is a legitimate supplier is a different part of the process.
Combining Research and Import Export Data
Let’s do some research for your business! Now, this is one of the hardest steps, as you should find a product that many people enjoy. From there, find a supplier, import wholesale, resell, profit!
Conducting research can be done in several different ways. Either you can use a software that does all the work for you, like Viral-Launch, or your own search from Amazon and Google. Because Amazon is always showing bestsellers, rankings, etc., it can be just enough, and it’s free!
Browsing electronics, we see this:
Apple’s Bluetooth earbuds seems to be the hottest item in electronics.
Many cases for peoples iPhone’s, no surprise, as it’s needed!
More scrolling and you start to see more Bluetooth earbuds, but cheaper than the Apple earbuds.
With more scrolling, you now see bluetooth earbuds that are different, but still a hugely popular item. The iPhone cases and temper glass are popular items too, but sells insanely cheap, which won’t give you good profit margins.
So, what do you do if you want to buy your own bluetooth earbuds to resell to wholesale buyers?
First, you check Alibaba. The hottest bluetooth earbuds are the Apple brand, so finding a similar one is in our best interest.
Search for “bluetooth earbuds” in Alibaba, and you get this:
Scrolling through, we see a bluetooth earbuds that are strikingly similar to the Apple brand earbuds (shown below). The supplier, “Shenzhen Top Star Industry Co., Ltd” also has a decent history and more transactions that the other competitors.
Wow! These earbuds look almost exact to Apple earbuds. Keep in mind, this isn’t to sell as imitations (that’s bad!), but to sell earbuds that at least look like Apple’s aesthetically, under your own branding.
Below, we see they come in different colors, and the price isn’t bad at all!
With a closer look, it’s small and compact, just like the Apple-branded earbuds.
As we scroll, the supplier offers branding! Perfect for private labeling.
This supplier is looking better and better. Check to see the company overview for more information by clicking its name on the right side.
Contact information to start buying wholesale is the first thing you see. Pictures of the facility make companies feel more authentic too. The little chat instantly gets you with a representative
Below, we see next to “Business type” it says “Manufacturer, Trading Company, Distributor/Wholesaler.” This is what you want. You want a company that creates the product. Many Chinese companies lie, even on Alibaba. To find out how to see if a Chinese company is legitimate, check out this guide.
Things are looking good! However, we need more information—that’s where import and export trade data come in.
With ImportKey, you will find the bill of lading of “Shenzhen Top Star Industry Co. Ltd”, with other information. This will legitimize the company, giving you the confidence to do business!
Below, we begin to enter the name, and we can see a perfect match.
As we click their name, we see they already have a buyer. So far, a good start!
As we explore, we see they have several buyers. Not only is this amazing, but it means they have experience working with multiple companies, further showing this is a legitimate company.
Below, we can now see the shipments. You can also adjust the date range on the left side to see a longer history. So far we see our company has a repeat customer. This is an incredibly good sign, as it shows the other party has had a good experience with them.
We check the “Buyers” tab, and we can see each buyer individually. Here we’re able to see total shipments, manifest quantity, total weight, and market share.
We can see there are no “Suppliers”, which is also a good sign. It means they really could be a manufacturer, as they haven’t bought supplies from other companies—they make their own products.
Lastly, we see a web of relationships of potential competitors and other businesses. However, there is no need to worry about that.
As a bonus, you can search “bluetooth earbuds or earphones” into ImportKey, and you’ll see all the cargo descriptions of suppliers who sent buyers bluetooth earbuds.
From there, you can search on Alibaba to see if the supplier is there.
Talk about making the process easier!
Where to Sell Your Import Goods
After you’ve done your research individually, using ImportKey to look at import and export trade data, and bought your first purchase order—it’s time to find wholesale buyers for your import goods!
There are various ways to do this, including:
- Your own personal store (i.e. Shopify)
- Amazon (can be combined with the personal store)
- Using Alibaba to sell to international sellers
- Offline store
Be diligent with social media. Even a website like Linkedin may be beneficial today to find connections. Work on your branding and message as well.
Potential business partners always do research, so it is important to establish an online presence, even putting a photo of yourself to show this is your wholesale business.