Choosing a Product – Part 2

Choosing A Profitable Product To Buy from China – Part 2.

If you know exactly what products you wish to directly buy from china, you can immediately focus on finding good suppliers for a particular product at wholesale prices and setting up initial deals.

But for a lot of people, especially those new to importing, trying to figure out which products are going to make you the maximum profit in the shortest time with the minimum headache can be very confusing.

Before you waste time, energy, and money on business projects that don’t have a solid foundation, you should decide on your strategy and prepare a detailed plan which must include in-depth market research. Remember that each investment of money means money not available for something else. The same goes for your energy and time. Plan wisely and you will reap the rewards. In the words of business development guru Brian Tracey, “if you fail to plan, you are planning to fail”

In terms of choosing a profitable product to buy from China, we can look at 2 different strategies:

1.Follow the herd. This is the “safe” approach where you discover what products are selling really well. Then get better quality products at cheaper prices, and find a better way to market your products.
2.Take the road less travelled. This is a higher risk approach but can yield much higher profits. By adopting this strategy you should have sufficient background knowledge to be able to identify new or unique products that are little known but have huge potential of selling in Australia.

Both approaches have their own advantages and disadvantages as shown in the table below:

Strategy 1 – Follow The Herd	Strategy 2 – Take The Road Less Travelled
Advantages     ·  Relatively easy to source products ·  Established market. ·  People know the product ·  Information already exists	Advantages     ·  Less competition ·  Uniqueness means customers will pay much higher prices ·  Opportunity to develop expertise on the product and gain recognition
Disadvantages     ·  Best sellers are normally branded ·  If you can easily source products, so can   your competitors ·  eBay “Power-sellers” are almost certainly selling these products now ·  Hot selling products are often short-lived and become obsolete. ·  Upgrades make products obsolete (who wants a 256Mb MP3 player?)	Disadvantages     ·  Far more Market development ·  More potential for faults developing (especially in electronics) ·  Risk that the product will not be successful ·  Someone else may capitalise on your marketing and come in with much lower pricing ·  It may be necessary to travel overseas to discover these products

So which strategy is the most appropriate? Can you succeed by simply “following the herd” or can you survive financially by taking the road less travelled?

In part 3 of this report “Choosing A Profitable Product To Buy from China – Part 3..” we will look at a few things you can do to reduce the risks.

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