sup /biz/
I'm an ebayer and started looking to expand my business with more products and inventory. I met someone online yesterday who happened to be looking for a quality ebayer to sell off his "overstock and extra" items.
i assumed he was a nigerian scammer but he wound up suggesting for a local meetup tomorrow and will give me a small batch of items to work with for test run
theres lots of weird:
-we just met a day ago, yet hes comfortable handing me (a stranger) a fairly large sum of value
-never asked for my ebay profile to check if im really what i claim
-he agreed to a 50/50 split of the -full selling value- of the item. He's not factoring in any cost of item initially to get it.
-the stuff he has is fairly good stuff (popular brands and items), or at least what he showed me so far is.
-said I can decide the prices
I asked for inventory examples to get an idea of what hes working with, he responded with pictures
Everything he showed me was in retail packaging. said some is used and/or not have packaging, but most do
fitbit, amazon fire, some off brand/small brand tablets, lg bluetooth headphones, etc. Some of it -might- be bootleg (i know lg headphones are bootlegged often, same for fitbit) but things like amazon fire and low brand tablets I don't think get bootlegged?
did a quick n dirty price check, if he gives me what he showed in the pictures the end result is around 400 bucks in my pocket.
questions:
-why does he trust me, a stranger, with that high of value
-how is he getting all this? I've looked for years. never any decent profit
Where's the catch /biz/? If this is real I stand to make -giant- money (assuming he has steady flow of inventory to sell)
>>1366689
just dont meet him in a dark hidden alley way somewhere and it could work out to be a good venture. make sure to see his id so you know he is who he says he is
>>1366693
The meeting is in an location that is very public and should have a fair amount of people traffic
why would i be concerned of him lying about who he is? Not being rude, serious question. As long as he hands me the products and I walk away without being shot I don't think him hiding hid identity is something to consider
>>1366689
Stolen products
>>1366689
>What is Receiving Stolen Product in X (X being your state) worth on your criminal history?
>>1366706
stolen products or he could want something from you first. and if not at first he may put you in a shady position in the future. you seriously need to know who your dealing with when it comes to business bru
>>1366720
well he wouldnt get anything from me first, i'm not an idiot lol.
same applies to the "shady position" thing, i like to think im smart enough not to fall into "traps"
but i can see where youre coming from, so I've done a little digging
-the contact number he provided to me ties to a facebook profile of a young man (my age or younger) with the same name he gave me in our emails
-it also ties to a linkedin of same person/name
-his linkdin profile says hes from this hometown, went to the local university, has a bachelor of science in finance
-is/was an equity analyst for a large company
(I don't really know what all that means, but hes obviously in the field of business so its not too far fetched that he does some entrepreneurial stuff)
more digging also links him to a vitamin selling website which i assume is another side gig he does (I'm fairly into internet marketing/sales, being a vitamin/suppliment dealer is a fairly common practice)
I'm fairly confident this guys not bsing about who he is but you make a good point and i'll verify he is who he says
with that said, if this was stolen merchendise I'd find it kind of weird that he supposidly has duplicate items. I guess its possible, but he said he gets this stuff from a liquidation company (and with his 9-5 being what it is he should have the startup funds required to buy into such things)
there are liquidation companies around here that sell good stuff but you gotta have the money to get in on it which ive never had
>>1366755
>being a vitamin/suppliment dealer is a fairly common practice
Where do you get this shit from? I've wanted to start up a small online store for a while but I never had any good idea of what I could sell and where I'd source it.
>>1366782
i'd like to keep this thread on track, but to answer your question really fast you can look into online marketing forums, or just google things like online vitamin reseller etc. theres dozens of products to pick from. I never did it because it seems too pyramid schemey/sell tupperware to your friends to me
>>1366822
Thanks dude I'll have a look into it, sorry to burst into your thread like that.
Another thing to keep in mind is that it's stock he couldn't sell and is looking to dump on somebody else. The only time I will buy from another local retailer is when I get a massive discount.
>>1366857
He could very well be legitimate. If it's left over stock from a bulk order that he couldn't finish off sending, then he's just trying to get something for a fraction of the cost he paid. If you end up holding the items then you become a low cost storage facility for him.
I wouldn't be surprised if stolen merchandise makes it's way into your inventory however. It may not all be stolen but a pair of Beats here, 20 pairs of Jordans there...if you catch my drift.
>>1366857
i'm not buying anything though. it'd make more sense to me if it was a case where I'm essentially buying inventory to resell myself, but that's not the case...
-we meet up
-he hands me inventory
-i go home, list/sell/ship the items
-give him his cut of the profits
also like previously mentioned, the merch hes shown me thus far has been all good desirable products.
anyway we'll find out soon, I'll report back and let yall know what turns out
>>1366874
So you're fencing goods for him? Run, don't walk. I don't care if the merchandise looks desirable. You're being used.
>>1366874
Ask to see the receipts/purchase orders of the goods.
I have returned from my meeting with the guy.
Things look good. He buys open box/returns/referbs from liquidation companies, all his products are open box and lots have stickers ("inspected" "return" etc) to back up his story
We talked for a bit and each of us poked and prodded at one another to flesh out one anothers stories. He asked questions about my ebaying, I asked questions about his inventory and what he does with it
He warned me that some items may be defective/broken so i'll be testing each item before i sell it, which im completely fine with
pic related, our water testing inventory.
me: *picks up box* "Is that a kindle?"
him: "hmm? yeah theres a couple in there"
me: "stuff like that should sell pretty fast"
him: "ohh? There's hundreds of those."
me: *pokerface* ohh, cool.
This is just a drop in the bucket for what he has apparently, so looks good if this holds true
>>1366755
youre contradicting as fuck. you say you dont know what it means (him being an equity analyst) then you insinuate he makes a lot based on that info.
OP is lying and fantasizing and living out his fantasies online. faggot
>>1368109
"dont know what it means" as in i have no clue what a "equity analylst" does in his actual day to day doings. Equity = the value of/in something, Analyst = ...analyzes. My guess is he evaluates companies and I would assume finds points of financial waste within the company. Besides that doxing him showed me he has a BS in finance.
Obviously he handles the inner workings of a/multiple businesses on some level, so I'm not shocked that he runs his own little operation.
I really had to explain this to you? fuck go back to /b/
>>1368070
just go with it
I think you can be naive if the cops get involved. He may be using you as a buffer so he can't be incriminated if the serial numbers off the stolen items are traced or something.
Maybe he works at Target or Best Buy or something and steals open box shit off the truck where he works. I worked for Circuit City before they closed down and employee theft was like 10 times as much as customer theft.
man yall are a paranoid bunch arent yall
I've finished rough quoting, inventory logging, and made a spreadsheet to see the various costs and profits we can expect to see. in turn he shared an inventory manifest of various pallets he has/purchased and their contained merchendise (sku's, MSRP's, etc) in an effort to help me identiify/categorize/etc the stuff he gave me (didn't need it, but it was nice of him to offer)
he gave me around 30 items, all of which were scattered through the spreadsheet.
its literally multiple thousand entries long, this would be a LOT of work for someone to fake just to "look legitimate" while trying to shill pocketed/stolen merchendise
pretty confident this guys on the up and up at this point. I'm stoked more than you could imagine.
