Okay, I lied. I'm not going to cover ebooks. I recieved my Certificate of Organization from my Secretary of State today.
I'm so glad I didn't spend the $$$$ to have someone do these filings for me. The form was right on ths Sec. of State website. I filled it out by easily following the questions.
One thing that did stump me was the signature line where a "title" of the signatories was required. Through some searching I found that "member" is good enough, but other titles might be Executive Officer, Presiding Member, etc.
Anyway, my Cert. came today and I'm thrilled. Now I just need an EIN from the feds and a state tax number. I'm on my way. I need these numbers to establish relationships with legitimate suppliers.
Disclaimer: Note that I'm not a lawyer, and I am not giving legal advice.
(c) 2007
Wednesday, August 29, 2007
Saturday, August 18, 2007
Finding a Product Source
I suppose I should tell you what I've done up 'til now.
Well, like most Internet users, I started with a Google search. I don't remember what the search was specifically, but there's a lot of crap out there. A LOT of crap.
What I found NOT to use is Doba.com. There are some nasty reviews of that website, and I couldn't find a single good thing said about it other than the testimonials on their website. Otherwise it sounds like Doba is always trying to up-sell their customers and they sell their products to you (the eBay seller) for more than what you can sell products for on eBay.
I spent a lot of time contemplating Worldwide Brands' "Once Source" and finally bit the bullet. I must say I was initially disappointed. The search results are not explicit. What I mean by that is if I look for "Winter Coats", I get no results. And when I change my search terms, the resulting sources don't necessarily have winter coats.
And don't expect every source to be a drop-shipper. In fact, it looks as if you're going to almost have to carry an inventory of some sort.
However, I will need to form my LLC and get a EIN to establish relationships with the dropshippers to see the prices. I understand the need for an EIN and I'm glad to see the businesses listed on Worldwide Brands demand you get one before contacting them. I'll get on that next. I think I can file for my own LLC and EIN for less than half the price of having one of those online places do it (such as IncorporateABuisness.com). It looks like they charge about $120 - $300 for LLC filings, plus the fees paid to the state where you form your company, which is about $90 - $150.
By visiting the Secretary of State website for my state, I see the registration fee is $125. There's also a requirement for annual reports which cost $50 to file.
I'll get into all of this later.
Let's get back to product sourcing.
Man, it's easy to get sidetracked here.
Before I purchased the Worldwide Brands membership, I noticed on their sales page that one of the types of sources is liquidators, so I did a Google search for that as well. I found Liquidation.com and wholesalerwholesaler.com right off the bat. Well, not to trust anyone right off the bat, I Googled these guys as well to see what others are saying about them.
As for Liquidation.com, the auctions can be fraudulent with very little recourse available to the seller. I'll go into more detail if someone requests me to, but for now, it's sufficient to say that I won't be participating in any of the auctions.
WholesalerWholesaler.com just looked like a pile of crap. Unprofessional, etc. After a very short search on Google, it was easy to find people complaining of getting knock-offs, etc. I guess I'll keep looking.
The last thing I'll mention that a lot of the liquidation websites seem to be selling pallets of the same stuff. They must be brokers. It will probably be beneficial to shop around and even call these places to see what the best price available is.
That's it for now. Next time I'll cover some eBooks I've read and the value (if any) they added to my Hunt.
Well, like most Internet users, I started with a Google search. I don't remember what the search was specifically, but there's a lot of crap out there. A LOT of crap.
What I found NOT to use is Doba.com. There are some nasty reviews of that website, and I couldn't find a single good thing said about it other than the testimonials on their website. Otherwise it sounds like Doba is always trying to up-sell their customers and they sell their products to you (the eBay seller) for more than what you can sell products for on eBay.
I spent a lot of time contemplating Worldwide Brands' "Once Source" and finally bit the bullet. I must say I was initially disappointed. The search results are not explicit. What I mean by that is if I look for "Winter Coats", I get no results. And when I change my search terms, the resulting sources don't necessarily have winter coats.
And don't expect every source to be a drop-shipper. In fact, it looks as if you're going to almost have to carry an inventory of some sort.
However, I will need to form my LLC and get a EIN to establish relationships with the dropshippers to see the prices. I understand the need for an EIN and I'm glad to see the businesses listed on Worldwide Brands demand you get one before contacting them. I'll get on that next. I think I can file for my own LLC and EIN for less than half the price of having one of those online places do it (such as IncorporateABuisness.com). It looks like they charge about $120 - $300 for LLC filings, plus the fees paid to the state where you form your company, which is about $90 - $150.
By visiting the Secretary of State website for my state, I see the registration fee is $125. There's also a requirement for annual reports which cost $50 to file.
I'll get into all of this later.
Let's get back to product sourcing.
Man, it's easy to get sidetracked here.
Before I purchased the Worldwide Brands membership, I noticed on their sales page that one of the types of sources is liquidators, so I did a Google search for that as well. I found Liquidation.com and wholesalerwholesaler.com right off the bat. Well, not to trust anyone right off the bat, I Googled these guys as well to see what others are saying about them.
As for Liquidation.com, the auctions can be fraudulent with very little recourse available to the seller. I'll go into more detail if someone requests me to, but for now, it's sufficient to say that I won't be participating in any of the auctions.
WholesalerWholesaler.com just looked like a pile of crap. Unprofessional, etc. After a very short search on Google, it was easy to find people complaining of getting knock-offs, etc. I guess I'll keep looking.
The last thing I'll mention that a lot of the liquidation websites seem to be selling pallets of the same stuff. They must be brokers. It will probably be beneficial to shop around and even call these places to see what the best price available is.
That's it for now. Next time I'll cover some eBooks I've read and the value (if any) they added to my Hunt.
Friday, August 17, 2007
Introducing... My Quest
I've decided I'm going to jump on the eBay bandwagon and see if I can't make an extra buck or two. I've noticed that nobody out there is giving specific answers to questions on product sourcing and other such stuff.
Here I will document exactly what services I've purchased, books I've read, product sourcing attempts I've made, and anything else I come accross in my attempt to make money on eBay. I hope I'm explicit enough that I'll be able to help others out there who are also trying to make money on eBay.
I guess time will tell.
- eBay Rookie
Here I will document exactly what services I've purchased, books I've read, product sourcing attempts I've made, and anything else I come accross in my attempt to make money on eBay. I hope I'm explicit enough that I'll be able to help others out there who are also trying to make money on eBay.
I guess time will tell.
- eBay Rookie
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