It’s been a while between blog posts for me, as I’ve been super busy running my business, but I thought it would be time for an update and to share some insights I’ve been having in regards to selling physical goods, which is primarily what I focus on these days.
Most people who get into affiliate marketing, or any form of information marketing, do not like the idea of selling physical stock as they often loathe the idea of having to store the stock and do all the shipping and handling. These are valid reasons, but there are solutions around this, which I will outline in this post, as I highly encourage people these days to sell physical goods, and even to progress towards developing your own brand also.
Option 1 – Fulfillment Houses
One option that you can use is to buy in stock and send it to a fulfillment house to store and do all the shipping and handling for you. There are loads of these in most countries, however you need to read their costing carefully. Essentially they will charge you for the shelf space you use up each week, and also for every order they ship out.
They are a great option as they can allow you to run a digital business, as you do not have to manage any of the stock yourself.
Option 2 – Dropshipping
I did an interview with Ezra Firestone recently about dropshipping, so if you missed that then perhaps check it out – Interview with Ezra. Dropshipping is where you sell physical goods, but you never take stock of them, and instead when you make a sale of a product, you send the order directly to the supplier and they ship to your customer for you. Again this option means you have a digital business.
Option 3 – Amazon FBA
A third option and something that I am also currently getting into is selling goods using the Amazon FBA (fulfillment by Amazon). This is very similar to the first option, in that Amazon is fulfilling the orders, but you are selling inside Amazon and get the huge advantage of all that buyer traffic that Amazon has.
There really is a huge scope of opportunity out there for selling physical goods, so if you have been put off by having to store and ship products, then don’t be, as these three options are all good and get around it for you.
One other thing I have started to experiment with is importing products via air freight, so it gets here fast, and selling via Google Adwords, so you get instant traffic. If you do this, because you are buying from the source and have instant traffic with Adwords you can test things fast and should be able to get good margins.
If you want to find products from overseas, then head over to Aliabab, as its a great free tool and will connect you with the world of suppliers.
More on this in a future post though.
That’s it for now, short and sweet.
Related articles
Thanks, as always for your thoughts and ideas!
I have always been put off by the thought of having to deal with refunds etc. How much time does this take up or can it be outsourced?
Thanks for the post Matt, yes I like Global Sources much better than Alibaba, the site is much easier to navigate and I believe the suppliers are vetted diligently – several times , and i have never been spammed by any of them.
Also i like the fact you can choose to download magazines that feature your target niches, and direct contact details, also they will link you up with suppliers at the trade fairs in china etc…great all round service.
i think we all need to diversify, try different models of IM and choose several that work well for us, as the net keeps evolving, so we will need to evolve too.
regards Jade C
Great tutorial! I started dropshipping recently too and it’s a learning process but I’m starting to get sales.
I’d like to add a few pointers, as for PPC. Bing is a good alternative but I’m finding amazon PPC to be even better (yea, you can advertise on amazon and not be part of their listings)!
Another thing about amazon, for most categories you will need a UPC or EAN for your product (google it) which requires money but you can buy resale ones on ebay for cheap. Another great way to get around this is to list your product under “everything else” on amazon.
hmmm what else… Oh yea!
On alibaba, it’s important that you use their filters to eliminate the unscrupulous wholesalers and the scammers.Make sure the following criteria is set:
Must be Gold Supplier
Must have Onsite Checked
Must be Assessed Supplier
Must Provide Escrow
Best of luck, and thank you Matt! Your rapid profit formula actually worked back in the day, unlike other products. Can’t wait to see what you come out with in the future.
Hi Matt,
Any suggestions on niche areas where you think there is opportunity to be had for drop shipping?
Patric
Yes Matt,
Long time no any new info from you. Thanks for appearing again 🙂 I’m also trying to sell, thought my approach is using eBay only.
I’m now preparing a huge blog post on the right way of building affiliate sites. If you want I may cite your reply and add your opinion in it.
Thanks for every thing you share with us
I have learnt so much and trying it out
Hope to share my success story one day
I remember reading on the FBA(fulfillment by Amazon) website that you can use the service even if you don’t sell on Amazon website, but you don’t get the full advantage of customer service and returns somehow. so you can sell on ebay,your own site or other portals.
Also while considering the cost of fulfillment by amazon, I estimated that it would be around 8$/month/pound of product..they have pricing tables, on their website for more exact numbers, any better estimations anyone? or maybe real numbers from someone who tried it already?
Good luck with the experiment, I hope it works out!
Matt,
I’ve never sold physical products, but things changed for me. I’ve recently created physical products for my business and sell it online.
I want to break into the Amazone FBA system and am not sure how to approach Amazone. It sounds like the best option for me so I can keep my focus online. Do you have any links, tips or tricks to work with Amazone?
PS: You are an expert online and your advice for offline is also invaluable. I believe a lot of people will benefit from understanding both online and offline.
Thanks again.
I like the whole idea of selling physical products over anything on the Internet so anything we can learn from you pertaining to this would be great.
G’day Matt:
I’ve just had my Amazon review site Google slapped, I was very disappointed, to say the least because at last I was starting to earn money through affiliate marketing.
It seems the big G doesn’t like affiliate sites, so your latest post has given me a new direction to investigate. I’ve thought of physical products in the past, but was put off by handing stock.
Despite Google, I still enjoy affiate marketing. I got a good kickstart with your “Rapid Profit Formula” course, and have further sharpened my knowledge with “Forever Affiliate,” which is an excellent step-by-step program.
But it’s probably a good idea to diversify, and physical products sounds like a good direction to take.
Hello Matt,
You’ve always inspired me with your sharing of ideas and how you run your business. I’ve been using you as a role model for the last couple of years. In the past, unless things have changed, I had got into dropshipping when I was selling on ebay. I had a supplier who shipped directly to my customer. This worked great. Although, I didn’t like the fact that they were cutting into my profits. Now, I know everyone in business needs to make money, but there were some hefty dollar amounts they charged for this service. I’ve seen recommendations from other Internet marketers who support this process, but they never bring up the fact that the company who drop ships charges you for this service. Anyway, I thought I would just mention this.
Best Regards,
Ken
Cheers for the great post Matt, very useful information here
hi ,matt
you are so right about start with physical goods
is wise advice to people take it & run it ..
over the years i find out great warehouse where where they can rent a small spot & hold all you physical goods and never see the product you are selling …this way you can automatic your E- Commerce site & your store become more profitable
cut to the chase!!
ok.ok
here are the site is pretty cheap
http://www.shipwire.com (usa)
http://www.vdepot.co.uk/ (this 4 uk ppl 😉
http://www.efulfillmentservice.com/
does site work almost like Amazon FBA
i hope that help matt
btw matt
can i keep in touch with that guy from south africa?
designer themes
thanks
Hi Matt
Good to hear from you 🙂 Thanks for this info I am going to look into the third option as I am used to Amazon and its already a respected estore so I figure it may be a little bit easier for me.
Hi Matt,
Hope you are well? It’s good to hear from you again, I have bought numerous products from you personally and from others as a result of your recommendations.
In order to diversify my internet marketing portfolio I will be creating a site selling physical products in the next week or so. Before I do this I would like to ask you a few questions if it’s ok?
1/ Ezra recommended Bigcommerce as the best ecommerce platform? If you agree, do you use it yourself? If not what do you use or recommend?
2/ Does you ecommerce sites Home page normally include a an article together with navigation to products, categories etc.. or does it get right into promoting products?
3/ Is it possible to show an example site that would reflect one of your own commerce sites? (Hopefully this question comes across the right way, as I am not looking for your niches or exact sites..)
Cheers
Alex
oporta Reply:
July 9th, 2013 at 2:48 am
goog question ? alex
i think is good to get started
cause u get down to chase ..
plus with the 30 u get almost everything to run it …
start woth ppc start testing ..
Thanks Matt for sharing the thoughts – very helpful. I have some really good handicraft products which has huge demand oversees. But I am held up due to additional cost of shipping etc.
I was just wondering if eBay has similar FBA type services or not.
regards,
Anarul
Hey Matt
Good to hear from you again. Can certainly understand why you are focused on your new business strategy. Thanks for the invite for the new webinar with Ezra.
Would love to see how your new site is going, if you are up to sharing the URL.
Cheers
Peter
Hey Matt,
I missed the webinar on Thursday 7/11/2013. Can you please upload it? I really want to watch it on ecommerce.