Your question is: Where are the providers? Since you don’t know where to start, you sign up on Alibaba.com, a contact platform between sellers and distributors, and start looking for suppliers by product categories. It doesn’t take long to find one that makes a tactile pen that, if you give credit to the photograph, is exactly the same as the German AluPen. For an order of 100 pens, they ask for 0.30 euro cents already made the conversion to dollars per unit. Taking into account transport and customs costs, in the end, bringing you a Chinese pen costs you 2.92 dollars per unit. You ask this provider for a sample. Here you see the feather duster. Apparently it is the usual you will know later, but you insist that it be one. Ordering one costs you 14 dollars, and 100, 156 dollars, transport costs included. You ask for one. You can have the e commerce license there.
Customs and certification
In the meantime, it occurs to you to speak to an entrepreneur who is an expert in import-export with China, to speak with him about guarantees, times, how to do business with the Chinese, in the event that they are finally suppliers.
It updates you on customs procedures and costs and explains that if you want to target children, you need an independent certification to guarantee products and monitor manufacturing. And there the operation becomes more expensive. And you are no longer interested. The product takes to arrive, in the end, two weeks. It is bigger than you expected and much heavier. You try to see the ease of removing the pieces and it is not difficult. Thus, to the brave, it is not suitable for children. You call the expert and tell him. Sure, it took three weeks because they haven’t seen you seriously. You should have asked them for 100. You think it responds not only as an expert in transactions with China but as someone with an entrepreneurial spirit. You tell him that you told them you wanted to test the product and they were upset.
Personalize
Then it occurs to you to customize the covers of mobile devices. You remember ForCover, a company you read about a few years ago. They wanted to do the same and since there were no manufacturers, in the end, they started to manufacture them. You continue your search for suppliers and you find the Cosmonaut model, you write to them and they respond.
I Need Someone Who
I have an idea to sell pens for touch screens of tablets and mobile devices online. I already have prices from both European and Chinese suppliers and I am now looking for an online trading platform on which to establish my store. I am looking for prices and services. You write this to an Internet service provider to do a little mystery shopping.
You are clear that technology is the least of your concerns, in the sense that it is a service that is subcontracted to an expert. Technology, as the experts you are talking to will insist throughout the experiment, cannot put barriers on you, it must be useful and not leave you hanging.
What exactly are you looking for?
Design and programming: development of the online store, technical maintenance of the online store and web hosting. Marketing and communication: online marketing SEO and SEM, social media and web analytics.