How to import from China? I want to buy several print-on-demand t-shirts, handcrafted and homemade goods, pet products or coffee beans from China. How can I buy and where to start? This kind of questions repeated many times from those who wanted to start a trade business with China supppliers. This article focuses on how to solve the mentioned questions and provides more inspiration business ideas for low cost buyers. Meanwhile, this article tells all new buyers to import and start their trade business step by step. For sophisticated buyers, you can still find business opportunities to enrich your product category. Let's get started by the following ideas:
Is it possible to start a trading business with little to no money? Or How can I import with low cost?
In fact, we can understand dropshipping is a kind of trading business if you hope it is a trading business. You can create a website with products you want, those products can be bought from amazon, etsy, ebay or other retail platform. Dropshipping is a type of order fulfillment method where store owners don't need to manage their inventory. I,e, you can start your business with this little or no money method. I will introduce how to import with low cost.
Get your business basics in order:
1. Product name
What type of products should I sell online? What should I know before selling my products?
In fact, no matter which industry you are in, there are two types of products you can sell:
Commoditized products and niche products.
Commoditized products are always essential and high demand products. They are popular in the market and everybody needs them. While niche products are goods or services which are very special. Those niche products only service a specific customers and belong to special product category. However, many store owners sell both of commoditized products and niche products to increase their profit margin.
2. Brand name
Brand name is not what makes your products look cool or fun. It must be communicative to your customers.
Brand name should be meaningful, unique, accessible, protectable and visual.
Here I give you some tips for finding the right brand name for your store:
Define brand heart
Ask yourself that who you are, what you are trying to achieve.
What future you help create?
Where is your value?
Trademark, patent, or copyright
Trademarks, patents, and copyrights are different types of intellectual property. The USPTO grants patents and registers trademarks. The U.S. Copyright Office at the Library of Congress registers copyrights.
|
Trademark |
Patent |
Copyright |
What's legally protected? |
A word, phrase, design, or a combination that identifies your goods or services, distinguishes them from the goods or services of others, and indicates the source of your goods or services. |
Technical inventions, such as chemical compositions like pharmaceutical drugs, mechanical processes like complex machinery, or machine designs that are new, unique, and usable in some type of industry. |
Artistic, literary, or intellectually created works, such as novels, music, movies, software code, photographs, and paintings that are original and exist in a tangible medium, such as paper, canvas, film, or digital format. |
What's an example? |
Coca-Cola® for soft drinks |
A new type of hybrid engine |
Song lyrics to “Let It Go” |
What are the benefits |
Protects the trademark from being registered by others without permission and helps you prevent others from using a trademark that is similar to yours with related goods or services. |
Safeguards inventions and processes from other parties copying, making, using, or selling the invention without the inventor’s consent. |
Protects your exclusive right to reproduce, distribute, and perform or display the created work, and prevents other people from copying or exploiting the creation without the copyright holder’s permission. |
Reference from: https://www.uspto.gov/trademarks/basics/trademark-patent-copyright
3. Price your product
Use this product pricing calculator to price your product.
Step 1: Find the average price of your product in your industry.
Step 2: Make sure the price which you set can drives long-term business profit
4. Get the logistics down
Choose airline or sea transportation
Make sure the duty between your countries and China.
Reference from: https://shippingchannel.fedex.com/en-gb/customs-clearance/duties-taxes.html
The above is the procedure for all new buyers when do importing business. We will take product examples to help you get business inspiration and find right suppliers so that the business can be operated smoothly.
Low-cost products listed for you to take reference before importing.
Design and sell print-on-demand t-shirts
Hand your design to suppliers. Before that you can sign up a trademark.
Sell handcrafted and homemade goods
Take https://www.puravidabracelets.com/ for example.
Story of puravida.
Start a pet business
Find pet products and search suppliers
Pet Industry Market Size, Trends & Ownership Statistics
Pet Industry Market Size, Trends & Ownership Statistics
Total U.S. Pet Industry Expenditures
Year Billions of dollars
2020 $103.6 Actual
2019 $97.1
2018 $90.5
(Data was announced at the 2021 State of the Industry presentation on 3/24/21)
Actual Sales within the U.S. Market in 2020
In 2020, $103.6 billion was spent on our pets in the U.S.
Breakdown:
Pet Food & Treats $42.0 billion
Supplies, Live Animals & OTC Medicine $22.1 billion
Vet Care & Product Sales $31.4 billion
Other Services $8.1 billion
(Other Services include boarding, grooming, insurance, training, pet sitting and walking and all services outside of veterinary care)
Estimated 2021 Sales within the U.S. Market
For 2021, it estimated that $109.6 billion will be spent on our pets in the U.S.
Estimated Breakdown:
Pet Food & Treats $44.1 billion
Supplies, Live Animals & OTC Medicine $23.4 billion
Vet Care & Product Sales $32.3 billion
Other Services $9.7 billion
Reference from: https://www.americanpetproducts.org/press_industrytrends.asp
Pet industry has a big potential, through this set of datas, you can see the needs of pet products are increasing year by year. This product has a big market potential. Just find niche products on this industry and boost your sales.
Start an online coffee shop
Lots of people have the habits of drink coffee every day. It looks like their main food and becomes necessary drinks in their daily life. As known, daily products always have good sales.
Here choose your cofee products firstly and start coffee shop online.
Is selling coffee beans a good business?
Sometimes, coffee is a kind of culture. Eg, Blue Mountain Coffee, Columbia coffee, Indonesian coffee, Costa Rican coffee, Brazilian coffee. Those different origins not only represent their culture, they always have special perfume. As known, thousands of coffee shops and houses greet their visitors with varieties of coffee beans. They roast and make different coffee drinks with different styles. For your online store, you can sell coffee beans from those countries or other countries. Many household have coffee machine. They could make coffee with those beans bought from your store. You just need to show those beans in image or video vividly in your store and describe them in details.
In the end, the above industries are what I list. In fact, you can find products in your favorite industry. After you define your products and suppliers. Make the next step that is to source from the supplier.
