Been a while...

[JerseyMVP]

Hey guys,

I used to be a member here a long time ago but since moved to college and let go of all my ideas.

Well it's summertime and I've been doing a lot of thinking. I never used to post my ideas on here because I was always afraid of getting them stolen. Well they never made it anywhere before anyway so why not!

I used to do a lot of buying from China back in the day. I ran an eBay business selling sports jerseys and did pretty well for a while. Everything was so simple in the business. The hardest part was always shipping from China to me. It was expensive, took a long time, and risky (several packages were lost or stolen).

Well importing from China has gotten 10 times bigger since that day. I can't imagine the number of packages coming in daily from Chinese wholesalers to be resold by the average Joe like myself. And I am sure each of those people are going through the same thing I was. Expensive shipping, weeks to get orders, and losing packages.

But what if those items were already in the United States? They're still the same stuff from the Chinese wholesalers just already here.

I am talking about a middleman business which has a warehouse or several in the United States where Chinese wholesalers send very LARGE shipments to stock their items here. When they need something shipped to somewhere in this country they provide us the shipping info and what to send. We ship it and take a small cut for ourselves.

Obviously shipping in large quantities is cheaper per item so it will save them money even after our cut. It also takes a huge weight off their shoulders by not having to pack and ship all these orders to the United States since we do it for them. I also think it would encourage more buying from customers here if they know the items are already here and they will get them safely and much quicker.

Please let me know what you think about this idea and if anybody would be interested in researching it further. I have already done a lot of research on my own and got plenty of feedback from Chinese wholesalers regarding the idea.

Thanks in advance.

John

[Will]

Hey John

This is sometimes what is known as a 'fulfillment house' or fulfillment service etc. Ship your goods to the fulfillment warehouse and have them deliver to your customer when you ask them to.
I am sure this goes on in the US already though it is more likely only for the very big Chinese companies.

The suppliers you dealt with in China for sports jerseys etc are generally very small operations, and they would not have the stock or money to ship a large amount of goods and then have it sit there until being ordered. I used to import small orders like you did but I always found the shipping pretty reliable and quick? I never used the normal China Post though, as that is a terrible service.

Furthermore, with sports jerseys etc, the ones that sell a lot are the fake versions of the big brands, which are cheaper and so people buy them on eBay. The organisation could soon get shut down if it was importing huge quantities of replica goods, and the shipments can easily be confiscated.

For legal goods (no branded products), a possible way to do this would be your company importing a large amount and then wholesaling it yourself in your country... Though from my dealings with the smaller time suppliers in China, I would find it very hard to imagine them being into the idea as they don't carry big stock of their own.

I am not saying don't do anything, everything is possible, though those are some of things I can see being in the way.

[Stone]

Arrrr the good old days of ebay and china imports, well i am sure it is still good now, but it was really good a few years back.

I like the idea!