Working The Floor

Once you're in, with untold thousands of booths spread out before you, it's imperative to have a plan of attack. If you're buying for eBay, you need to methodically hunt down the bargains. These gift shows cater to all types of businesses, including upscale boutiques and museum stores. Those folks can pay premium wholesale prices because they just pass it on to their customers. But we've got to be craftier.

Sarah's first rule of gift shows: no matter how unique it is, another booth has it.

There's no such thing as "unique" at a gift show. You'll always have a choice of at least two suppliers, frequently at wildly divergent prices.

This is why I recommend that you walk down every single aisle before you make a single purchase. If you see an interesting item, check it out. Write down the booth number, a description of the item, and the price. Then just keep moving. Sales people will tell you, "Order now, because you'll never find our booth again in all this madness." That's precisely the reason the booths are numbered! Take a business card if they have one. But don't buy – not yet.

You might round the corner and find the exact same item for 30% less. There's not much rhyme or reason to pricing at a gift show. Some exhibitors are manufacturers, some are direct importers, but most are middlemen that may actually buy their inventory from another exhibitor at the show!

So your survey will usually pay off, even if it's tedious at times to slog through another aisle of cast-resin garden art.

Sarah's second rule of gift shows: the bargains are in the back.

The booths that you see as you enter the show are gorgeous. They should be, considering that the wholesalers paid $10,000 or more to rent these premium spots! They have to make a lot of sales on fairly high margin to make it worthwhile.

A booth in the back row or other low-traffic area might be one-tenth the cost, and that's where you'll find the same or very similar merchandise for significantly less. In San Francisco, the gift show has a whole separate building with 600 booths that you have to take a bus to from the main show. The bargains there are incredible! On my last visit, fashion jewelry that was $6.50 in a large booth on the main floor was $1.15 there. The less expensive booth was the manufacturer's, and the large wholesaler in the main hall was one of their customers.

Putting Together a Product Line

How do you sort through the huge variety of stuff available at a gift show? In general, you want to find a set of goods that meet the following criteria:

1. They work well together, creating natural cross-selling and up-selling opportunities.
2. Your inventory budget is large enough to buy them in sufficient quantity.
3. They will sell on eBay for at least twice what you pay for them.
4. They are easy to store and ship.
5. You can get really excited about them!

1. They work well together, creating natural cross-selling and up-selling opportunities.

You need to create a theme for your eBay store. Maybe it's "all natural bath and body products." Or "sterling silver jewelry." Or "tea and teapots." Or "modern home décor." Whatever it is, you need to be able to say it in a short, specific phrase. "A little bit of everything" is not a workable theme! Having a theme puts more money in your pocket in three ways:

• It generates repeat customers. Folks will return to a store that has stuff they love.
• It gives you more chances to sell multiple items in one transaction (cross-selling).
• You can catch a buyer's eye with one item, and then actually sell them something more expensive (up-selling).

To start generating themes, look at the items you wrote down while doing your show survey. What were you particularly drawn to? Can you group any of the items? Try to come up with five or six contenders.

2. Your inventory budget is large enough to buy them in sufficient quantity.

Once you've decided on a theme, you need to decide which specific items you will purchase. Your goal here is to make your store seem "finished." Think about what you'd expect to see in a mall shop with your theme.

Let's take "sterling silver jewelry" as an example. You might reasonably be expected to carry necklaces, bracelets, earrings, and rings. Within each category, you'd want perhaps eight to fifteen different styles.

Once you've determined what to buy for a finished feel, take a look at your inventory budget. In general, you should buy no fewer than five of each item. Keep in mind that at this point, you are essentially purchasing samples to see if the items sell well. (If they do, reorder in dozens.) Does your budget cover at least five of each item you need to buy?

If it doesn't, consider refining your theme. Perhaps "sterling silver bracelets" instead of the more general "jewelry." The key to success with an eBay store selling new (as opposed to secondhand) merchandise is depth. Keep refining until your budget will buy you depth.

3. They will sell on eBay for at least twice what you pay for them.

Before you make any purchases, get on eBay and look up how well other sellers have done with the items. What's the highest selling price? Could you live with that margin? How many ended with no bids?

Completed item searches are the key here. To do a completed item search, check the box for "Completed Items Only" on eBay's "Search" page. After all, you want data for auctions that have already finished, not ones that are in progress where bid amounts might change.

This research will save you a lot of heartache -- not to mention money! I went through several wildly different themes until I found one where the market wasn't overcrowded.

4. They are easy to store and ship.

Don't buy more stuff than you have room to store, and try to keep to smaller items that can fit in standard boxes (up to 15"x15"x15") or bubble mailers. Remember: the price you set for your item plus the shipping fees you charge has to be less than the cost of buying it locally.

5. You can get really excited about them!

This is as essential as the previous four points. You're going to spend a lot of time thinking about these products, photographing them, writing copy about them, packaging them, and shipping them. And that's not even getting into off-eBay marketing of your store! With any old product assortment, it quickly becomes just like any other job. It's imperative that you choose products that you can be passionate about.

Making the Purchases

So you've got a list of products you want to buy in quantity. Now your job is to get the best price you can. Even if part of your product line seems exclusive to one company, you can find something to compare it to.

Sarah's third rule of gift shows: companies are never showing everything they have.

You want to get at least two price points before buying, so look for a booth that sells similar items. Describe to them what you're looking for and chances are, they'll pull out a phone-book-sized catalog and there it will be on page 784. When you're buying in quantity, even a small per-item price reduction is worth the time it takes to just ask.

The Results

If you follow these tips, you'll probably end up placing orders with a half-dozen or more suppliers. There are, of course, a few drawbacks to consider when spreading out your buying like this among smaller, less flashy wholesalers. If you have to call them, you may find that English is not the receptionist's best language. They may not have nice catalogs, or a website where you can view the latest merchandise.

It's hard to tell how easy they will be to work with before you place your first reorder after the show is over. This is why you should always cover your bases -– keep the contact info of at least two other companies selling the same thing, even if you don't buy from them at the show. That way, if an item gets hot but your primary supplier drops the ball (this will happen, and when least convenient), you can reorder from a backup source.

If you had more money than time, you could have probably purchased everything you needed at one of the big booths up front and been done in time for lunch on the first day. But this is your business. If your legwork saves you $700 on inventory, that's $700 back in your pocket. Where it should be, of course.

Sarah Mei is a software engineer who spent several years plying the waters of eBay.