[2022-02-01] How I made $1000 a month with my Ebay Business [j6OeuBOYLAY]

Hello and welcome back to a new video.

Today I'd like to talk about how I made

$1,000 a month with my online eBay

dropshipping business. And almost anyone

can do this. There's a very low entry

barrier here, and you don't need any kind

of fancy master's or bachelor's degree in

economics or business. It's the basic

fundamentals of economics. We are finding

out what is the demand and how we can

supply that demand whilst making some nice

juicy profits. Okay, so first of all, let

me tell you what kind of eBay shop I used

to manage and operate. I used to find

products in Japan to sell here in England

on eBay, and one of my most popular items

that I used to sell were these Japanese

whetstone knife sharpeners. For some

reason here in England, people love

Japanese whetstones and knife sharpeners,

maybe because Japan has this kind of

historical reputation of being samurais

and having ninja swords and having sharp

katanas and samurai weaponry. And people

think, oh, if I'm going to sharpen my

kitchen knife, then having a Japanese

whetstone will be better than any kind of

other whetstone from other parts of the

world. I don't exactly know why the

Japanese whetstones were so popular, but

apparently they were. And I found out this

by doing a bit of research, and I did

research by checking out other eBay shops

which also sold Japanese items to people

in England, which is what I wanted to do.

And I noticed that one of their

best-selling items were the knife

sharpeners. So I just copied what they did

and then undercut their prices so I had a

competitive edge. And I used this same

method to find other products which would

sell well. I would just go into other

people's eBay shops, see what they were

selling, check out the reviews and the

feedback and see how popular the items

were and how well they were doing. And

that's how I judged if I also wanted to

sell similar things. Now the next problem

was I had to go to Japan to actually

personally receive the items to then pack

up and then ship out to my customers back

home in England. So I took a bit of a

gamble here and I booked myself a ticket,

I moved to Japan, and I started to find

out where I could locally source these

Japanese whetstones and knife sharpeners

and other items that I hoped to sell.

Now, I could have just bought the Japanese

whetstones directly from the shops like a

customer, but then I'd be buying it at

retail price. That would have worked as

well, but if I wanted to maximize my

profits, I wanted to buy from a

wholesaler's price. So what I did was I

found out where these knife sharpeners

were being made and who were making them,

which company, and I arranged a

correspondent meeting with the executives,

and I went directly to the warehouses and

and I arranged so that I could buy in bulk

a lot of these whetstones at a large

discount. Now, if you're trying to

replicate exactly what I did and follow in

my footsteps, you might have a bit of a

problem here if you don't speak Japanese.

Fortunately for me, I could speak fluent

Japanese, so it wasn't really a problem

arranging this kind of transaction. Now

that I had my number one best-selling item

and product secured, all I had to do was

now advertise the product to the eBay

customers back home in England and create

a nice attractive listing with beautiful

graphics and fonts and set it at an

attractive price which wasn't too

expensive but also meant that I could

cover my cost basis and make a bit of

profit. So basically what would happen is

I would get some orders on eBay from my UK

customers saying that they wanted to

purchase one of these whetstones and then

I would now use one of my whetstones that

I have back in my stockroom and I would

parcel it up, pack it up and get it ready

to ship as a parcel, take it down to the

post office. I used to carry a big carrier

bag full of them, and I would take like 20

whetstones at a time to the post office.

And I'd use the fastest possible

international tracking postage service

that I could use because I wanted the

product to get to the customer as quickly

as possible. Now, the main problem was it

got quite expensive with postage fees

because these whetstones and knife

sharpeners pretty heavy. They were like

bricks, and it would cost maybe £20 to

ship them back home to England. And it

cost me about £15 to buy the whetstone in

the first place. So in order to make any

profits, I had to sell the knife

sharpeners at, at least £50 so I could

cover the cost of shipping and packing,

material cost and expenses, and also

buying the item in the first place. I had

to cover those costs, and that would leave

me about £20 in profit, which is quite a

nice profit margin. If you sell like 20 of

these, you times 20 by 20, and that's,

that's like $400. On a good month, I'd

make about $1,000 in gross profit

revenues. And people thought I was pretty

weird carrying all these knife sharpeners.

I'd bring them down because I was staying

at this guesthouse, bring them down to the

living room in the guesthouse, and I'd

just be sitting there parceling and

packing up all these whetstones and then

putting them into a bag and taking them

down to the post office. And I wasn't only

selling knife sharpeners. I had other

products like makeup and Japanese

cosmetics and magazines and kind of anime

manga related products as well, which were

quite popular. But the number one most

best-selling items were definitely the

whetstones. And there were different

varieties of whetstones. There were big

ones and small ones, rough ones and

smoother ones. I had to learn all about

the knife sharpening industry to become

good at what I did. And I was pretty good

at what I did. Now, I don't want to sound

like I'm blowing my own trumpet here

because it's not really part of my culture

to brag about stuff, but I was basically

known as the whetstone boy or the knife

sharpener connoisseur. If people back home

in England needed a Japanese knife

sharpener, they would come to me. If you

came to my eBay shop, you would be able to

purchase the finest, highest quality

Japanese whetstones and knife sharpeners

at the best, most competitive price. Now

you might be thinking, if you were so

great at this and if it was making so much

money, how come you're not doing it

anymore? Well, unfortunately, good things

eventually come to an end, and I was hit

by a series of devastating and tragic

events which were completely not my fault.

So basically what happened was there was a

very big earthquake that happened in the

northern region of Japan, and it was

followed by a massive tsunami which wiped

out almost all of the warehouses which

which were creating and stocking my

whetstones and knife sharpeners. So when I

kept getting more orders from my UK

customers, I couldn't supply them with any

more new sharpeners because there just

wasn't any stock available in all of

Japan. During this time, my shop was at

its peak popularity, and also Christmas

was coming soon, so I was getting loads of

new orders. This huge amount of money was

just pouring in from all of these

customers who wanted a Japanese knife

sharpener. And instead of just telling

them upfront that I didn't have any stock

and giving them their money back, I tried

to make them wait. I thought, hold on a

minute, maybe I can find some of these

knife sharpeners somewhere else in Japan.

Maybe there's another warehouse that is

supplying them. So I tried my best to find

a new source for these knife sharpeners,

and I tried to make the customers wait.

But unfortunately, people got very

impatient, and after about a week, I still

couldn't get any stock of these knife

sharpeners. People started to get very

angry at me, and I got hundreds and

hundreds of complaints and refund requests

from my customers on eBay. And eBay

noticed this and contacted me and

basically forced me to give all of the

money back, or else they were going to

send debt collectors and bailiffs to my

house, which was very scary. So I had to

give all the money back, and I thought,

well, this kind of sucks, but maybe I can

just get back to selling when everything's

back to normal. I can just start selling

the knife sharpeners again. But

unfortunately, because of all this

negative feedback I got and all this

backlash, eBay banned me from selling ever

again. So I had to give up on the idea of

having my own eBay shop ever again,

because unless I changed my name and got a

new bank account, I just wouldn't be able

to open a new account for selling. Now,

even though I've been banned from selling

on eBay and I've now found better and more

effective ways of making money, I still

think you could give it a try and maybe

sell some knife sharpeners. Or maybe try

and find a different kind of product that

you could buy it for a pretty good price

in one country and then sell it for double

the price in another country. It might not

be knife sharpeners, it might be something

else. And I think this business plan and

strategy should still be pretty effective

even in 2022, especially now that Japan is

closed to foreigners. If you're based in

Japan, it could be pretty lucrative to

open up a Japanese store and provide

people who can't get into Japan with the

Japanese products that they want to buy so

much.