Kobold Backpacks £15 Yes £15!

[davewindowcleaner]

:laugh:/emoticons/biggrin.png

 

[Poles Apart]

Kobold backpack ebay 20 litre, 12 amp heavy duty battery, built in trolley, £85 inc vat and free delivery.

 

[Jimroot]

Think I'll self build my next one...

 

[Posh]

That's what I did. Built 2 of them.

 

[BenjiRixon]

Do what other groups/forums I'm on -

Big group buy :-D

 

[Guest]

Thing with buying from china is shipping costs, and tax you have to pay when you import into the country, would double the price

 

[Smurf]

At least

Thing with buying from china is shipping costs, and tax you have to pay when you import into the country, would double the price

 

[TolishAPurd]

The quality can also be very questionable on the products, especially if you are just a small buyer. Its not like you can just return the gear or get a refund. I had a mate who shipped over a load of gym equipment, and I think they sent him a container of seconds.

 

[Jimroot]

I suppose then a bit of of the mark up, an important bit, is the statutory rights attached when the WFP company sells it on with it's branding.

 

[Tuffers]

Welcome @Roy. What do you supply?

 

[Poles Apart]

The quality can also be very questionable on the products, especially if you are just a small buyer. Its not like you can just return the gear or get a refund. I had a mate who shipped over a load of gym equipment, and I think they sent him a container of seconds.

They're mostly all Kobold so quality isn't different, had them from Gardiners with wires disconnected on delivery and dodgy pressures on pumps, what some of these suppliers are missing is there are some window cleaners out there who are willing to spend 2 or even 3 hundred pound on one that is better quality after all it's a tool of the trade, why do we need 100 pound back packs?/emoticons/sad.png

 

[TolishAPurd]

They're mostly all Kobold so quality isn't different, had them from Gardiners with wires disconnected on delivery and dodgy pressures on pumps, what some of these suppliers are missing is there are some window cleaners out there who are willing to spend 2 or even 3 hundred pound on one that is better quality after all it's a tool of the trade, why do we need 100 pound back packs?/emoticons/sad.png

When I was talking about questionable quality I meant just getting things imported from China in general regardless of the brand or product. Manufacturers seem to fob off smaller buyers with the rubbish (stuff that didnt make it through quality assurance) as they know you have almost zero comeback. Like my mate in the example above, he was dumped with a load of gear that was almost impossible to sell except at knockdown prices.

 

[dredge3]

Yeah pole company's most make a mint! It's not exactly the most expensive thing to make is it... Not a lot to them at all

http://www.alibaba.com/trade/search?fsb=y&IndexArea=product_en&CatId=&SearchText=carbon+fibre+poles

 

[Poles Apart]

When ppl say I want to start up wfp work and others suggest to get a backpack which is cheap china **** I cringe every time. They are simply not meant to be used everyday for wfp window cleaning.

LOl I found this from 2015 I use them everyday one I have is 7 years old and yes used nearly every day.

 

[steve garwood]

LOl I found this from 2015 I use them everyday one I have is 7 years old and yes used nearly every day.

Lol. Wish a couple of those fellas would come back, used to have z good laugh with them ?

 

[Tango]

Yeah pole company's most make a mint! It's not exactly the most expensive thing to make is it... Not a lot to them at all

That's fair comment when you look at the profit margin per product but don't forget poles and back packs aren't exactly gonna shift in the hundreds every week so while it looks like a vast profit, it might not be.

 

[Baldmonkey]

Yeah good luck with that, shipping will be FOB and you will pay customs charge, import tax and on cost from your port, probably double each unit price for final at your doorstep price. So let's say the unit costs you £30 each to get to your door, ebay and PayPal fees work out around 13.4%..... So let's say you sell them for £90 so your cheaper than gardiner. EBay and y and PayPal fees, for ease £13.shipping one of them will probably run you around £1p with a good courier. 

£90 - £30 product cost - £13 fees - £10 postage = £47 and all that is being very Conservative on fees.... And let's not even get in to faulty/returned items

 

[Chris34]

Yeah good luck with that, shipping will be FOB and you will pay customs charge, import tax and on cost from your port, probably double each unit price for final at your doorstep price. So let's say the unit costs you £30 each to get to your door, ebay and PayPal fees work out around 13.4%..... So let's say you sell them for £90 so your cheaper than gardiner. EBay and y and PayPal fees, for ease £13.shipping one of them will probably run you around £1p with a good courier. 

£90 - £30 product cost - £13 fees - £10 postage = £47 and all that is being very Conservative on fees.... And let's not even get in to faulty/returned items

That sounds about right.  I used to run an Ebay business, I didn't import from China, never got big enough to do that but the guy in the unit next to mine did import.  He used to spend around £15k to £30k for each container coming in.  You can make good money but the risks are also there.  

They will stipulate you buy 200, so you buy 200 then start to sell them, some will be returned and you will have to refund them it's the law, if you don't refund them then Ebay will do it anyway and then ban you from selling on there permanently.  For each one returned you are £30 out of pocket, the chinese factory will not give you a penny back, you're just small fry to them.

The main risk though is that you buy 200 start selling them and then another seller will drop their price, cheapest always wins on Ebay / Amazon.  So you drop your price, they drop theirs again and then you get the race to the bottom.  Not forgetting that 200 boxes need to be stored somewhere, then there is all the extra paperwork from running the business to organising couriers.

It sounds like easy money, in a way it is when it works but when it doesn't work through getting a bad batch, or somebody selling cheaper then it costs you £1,000's in lost money, yes you heard that right you lose money, something that doesn't happen in window cleaning, very worst that can happen is you work for free but you don't actually lose money.

It's good fun buying and selling, I do miss it but the risks are just too high, certainly for selling on Ebay or Amazon.  You can buy £15k worth of goods and if Ebay decide to ban you then you're stuck, how do you sell them if you're banned?  There are no other marketplaces that you can shift that volume of stock.  Heck imagine if you added to your selling lines had £100k of stock all stored in a huge unit and you then get banned, that unit still has to be paid for but how do you shift all the stock.

Gardiners do well because they have built their brand selling stuff through their own website.  Now you could say well just ignore Ebay and Amazon and sell via your own website, well it isn't that easy.  First you need to know what you're doing, yeah you can get a website up and running for £500 but it would look nothing like Gardiners.  Secondly you need to build your business brand and get established, this would take years and tens of thousands to do.

If you've got the money spare then give it a go, you'll need around £6k for the purchase and probably £4k in reserve just in case they hold it at the ports, they charge a lot of money per day and theirs nothing you can do just got to factor it all in.  Then bang them on Ebay and see what happens, if it works you will double to triple your money, if it doesn't then it's a case of rescuing what you can and trying to not lose the shirt off your back.

Like I say you can make good money but it is like gambling, if you do your homework there is money to be made for sure but just like you can make good money you can also lose good money, something that doesn't happen in the window cleaning.

 

[scottish cleaning service]

Got a email back from Chinese supplier after an enquiry I made. Ok you've got to buy 300 units but anyone can buy these in if you can get them distributed. Just goes to show how much money WFP suppliers are making, wonder how much they make on poles? Even if you factored that they made £50 on a extreme pole surely their not paying £400 per pole buying them in from China:hehehe:

I heard Alex makes poles in his factory.

 

[Tango]

It's good fun buying and selling, I do miss it but the risks are just too high, certainly for selling on Ebay or Amazon.  You can buy £15k worth of goods and if Ebay decide to ban you then you're stuck, how do you sell them if you're banned?  There are no other marketplaces that you can shift that volume of stock.  Heck imagine if you added to your selling lines had £100k of stock all stored in a huge unit and you then get banned, that unit still has to be paid for but how do you shift all the stock.

Most ebay sellers i've bought from tend to stick a receipt / slip in the parcel advertising their website. ebay can't stop that despite their rules about it being in their online auctions. It's a good way to build your website up.

ebay is a love/hate thing for both sellers and buyers - same with amazon so customers will always take notice if you provide them another way to buy from you at a cheaper price.

 

[Chris34]

Most ebay sellers i've bought from tend to stick a receipt / slip in the parcel advertising their website. ebay can't stop that despite their rules about it being in their online auctions. It's a good way to build your website up.

ebay is a love/hate thing for both sellers and buyers - same with amazon so customers will always take notice if you provide them another way to buy from you at a cheaper price.

I was heavily into it when I ran my business and looked into all stuff like you say.  According to other website owners who tried it, trying to get people off the Ebay / Amazon platform and buy from their own website was really difficult.  Apparently you would be looking at 10% of the people who bought from Ebay would buy off your website, that's despite offering them a 10% discount.  In short, they would rather pay extra and buy off Ebay, strange but true.