Why waste your time with Vero?

[oompaloompa]

YouTube - Spam

YouTube - Spam

oh did I say spanking , I meant spamming....

[TigerLord]

Years ago (5+) ago I was browsing eBAY to get a sci-fi TV series that is no longer available from the manufacturer - out of print they call it. I did not know this was the case, and thinking price would be a good indication of quality, I browsed collections available. Bought one for 240$, received it at home... it was a horrible product. Screamed bootleg. That's when I got the idea to try an eBay business. Made my own copies of the copies, and tried to sell it. Wow, it worked.

After a few weeks I realized there was a niche for that - but the copies were so horrible, I was surprise not everyone returned them, some even really loved them. Maybe I am difficult (ok, I'm totally anal about video/audio quality, own audiophile earphones, etc...) went on Amazon, bought all original boxsets of the series (costing me 875$), re-designed all covers myself, professionally, and in a sense, manufactured my own high quality bootlegs. I kid you not, they looked so authentic and the quality was so good I could have fooled myself. None in my family would ever have considered it a bootleg unless you inspected the DVD content and knew what to look for. The quality of the audio and video was identical.

So I started selling that series (my version), with a premium of 100$ over the terrible bootleg I had been fooled by. And oh boy, did it work. Even people who knew the series was out of print and knew they'd buy a bootleg, writing me back, saying "I know this is a bootleg, but it's a damn fine one". Unlike the other, where I had a few returns and such, this one earned me quite a bit of money, even repaying all the initial cost of the equipment to make them. At the time I had started this as a necessity to pay tuition and such, and after a few years, I stopped. Not because it wasn't selling well, but because it was time consuming. It takes time to make a quality product, and if you cheap out somewhere, you'll pay the price eventually.

Of course this required some heavy technical expertise to do, but the fact is, Hitch is right: if you look, you CAN find something lucrative stuff to sell. I got the idea by being fooled myself, and then taking the idea someone had, and made it better. The asshole who originally sold me his copies even tried to shut me down once - took him 3 years before he succeeded.

However, in my book, if you don't expect to do some actual work, you cannot expect to make good money. I did good money because I invested hundreds of hours in preparing and designing the best product I could, and taking care in the reproduction process. Buying ⊗⊗⊗⊗ or copies from some wholesale china suppliers and trying to resell them on eBAY might be easy, but it'll get you down eventually. Nobody could shut ME down based on ⊗⊗⊗⊗ accusations - whereas the bootleg -I- had bought were known bootlegs (if you researched), mine had art never before seen, and looked so professional, the believed it was a R3 official release like I said it was... because I took CARE in the making.

Eventually I moved on to other legit things. I felt guilty for selling copies, even if I did my best to offer the best product, a product they could not get anywhere, but even then, I knew it was wrong. Eventually my competitors started to offer the same original bootleg I had bought for even more than what I was selling mine - and buyers still bought their product. Pissed me off at first, but then I realized, after bookmarking all of those sellers - all 9 of them were shutdown eventually, probably due to all those negs they were getting. Try to be TOO greedy and cheap out on your buyers, you WILL pay the price in stress, hours of sleep, money and possibly tears.

The moral of the story:
Don't be lazy. Offer the best customer service you can. You sell copies and someone wants a refund? Don't be an ass, you didn't fool this one. Refund him his money once he returned the product. Not worth the attention or negative feedback.

Above all, do your research correctly, be vigilant, and never bite off more than you can chew.

[oompaloompa]

I will tell you the best ranges I have are things i bought for myself, and then decided to sell...

[arsgunner77]

ive it once and ill say it again..there are quite a few vero items that are good enough to sell,i personally think anyone trying to last long selling purses..clothes and electronics are just not going to last at all

and a bit of advice for someone selling anything vero...have the best customer service as possible and if someone wants a refund,dont argue with them..what i do is ill either offer a full refund or ill offer a partial refund of 30-50%(depending on the item) and they will take this offer most of the time while i still profit

its not like im selling vero for a career or anything,for a year or two is fine,plus if i dont sell certain things,someone else will and with stealth accounts...why the F not

[veggiegymrat]

You make it sound easy to find things to sell that are not vero, but it's not that simple. I am not one of those people to make quick and irrational decisions. I research until I'm blue in the face, and then do some more. I still have yet to find something to sell that does not have a registered vero member on ebay. I'm to the point where I will gladly pay for information to successfully start me in the right direction, because the research I do is cutting so much into my family time. I work a regular job during the day so I do my research while my family is wishing I were in the living room with them. It's hard.

[Isparana]

Another keeper add to the knowledge... You guys are great!

[MrGangitano]

Originally Posted by cjbennett

You make it sound easy to find things to sell that are not vero, but it's not that simple. I am not one of those people to make quick and irrational decisions. I research until I'm blue in the face, and then do some more. I still have yet to find something to sell that does not have a registered vero member on ebay. I'm to the point where I will gladly pay for information to successfully start me in the right direction, because the research I do is cutting so much into my family time. I work a regular job during the day so I do my research while my family is wishing I were in the living room with them. It's hard.

I'm in this boat

I just simply can't find non-copied items to sell on eBay without having $50-100g in startup for inventory from suppliers

[GreenBean]

Ya'll should have known ebayhateluv. She had 6 kids & did very very well with ebay. The words 'can not' were not in her vocabularty

[Lyda]

She must have left just about the time I signed on, so I am sorry I didn't get the chance to get to know her better... but I did read and benefit from some of her posts. I hope she considers coming back one day. I know people here miss her.

[Burst]

Originally Posted by oompaloompa

I will tell you the best ranges I have are things i bought for myself, and then decided to sell...

And youll usually sell them better than most because you know more about the product. There was another post around saying that sellers who knew what they were talking about when selling sold for a good percentage more than other sellers who just put the item up with a paragraph description.

A seller was looking to do legitimate wholesale business when stuck in a low paying job. The seller couldnt get out of the job for at least a few years so they beared it out.

The seller then did some research and ordered products that had an amazing resale value. They couldn't believe how lucky they were to find such a resource for low prices items.

While the item was in transit, they did a little more research and found out the items that were on their way were probably ⊗⊗⊗⊗. The seller at the time would never have thought they would even copy items like that. *Boy have times changed on that thought now*

So the sellers mind frame had to change to get these items sold. The seller found this site not too long after. And things have been moving great since. Vero opened the sellers eyes to a lot of things. It has helped the seller quite a lot. Found a lot of new hobbies, and have had a lot of fun in the process.

[oompaloompa]

vero copy items;
pros ; typically 100% - 1000% profit, lower outlay, easy to source.

cons ;takedowns, refunds from buyers, customs issues, suspensions and accounts waiting until alert has passed, risk of legal action.

non vero items are more like 20%-80% profit, the outlay is usually high, but I disagree that you have to spend thousands..start with x 2 samples and see if they sell well and the profit is worth it, then you can make an order for double that and sell and so on..never risk more than you can afford to lose...
doesnt mean though that you escape competitors or paypal limitation clutches, thats a delight that everyone has to endure..

the reason I am selling things originally bought for myself, is purely that I hate to take a risk or waste money, so on a few occasions I saw something that i would like to own, bought it, tested it and tried to sell it, knowing that if it sold, I would buy another for myself, plus a few extra to sell again. If it didnt sell for what I wanted, no biggie I would keep it for myself plus I knew it wasnt a good product to sell, cant lose that way..

[philly387]

Why not do research on the items before you decide to purchase and sell on ebay? That way there isn't much of a risk at all. No need to purchase samples, etc...

Use the completed listings tool in ebay, does wonders. When you use that tool, check to see who purchased the item and see if they have some feedback or not. If they do, more than likely they paid for it. But if they have 0 feedback, they may not have paid for it.

Hopefully this helps!

[oompaloompa]

yes, I mean I wouldnt bother selling anything that I didnt think would sell for a good profit. I look at what others sell and their feedback. What I am trying to say is that I havent ever bought stuff just to sell, I have always known that if it didnt sell as successfully as I planned, I wanted item anyway, and this has worked for me and made it a more relaxing experience..

[Lyda]

I like your ways Ooompa, as that is how I started selling on Ebay myself and it worked for me most of the times. I would be scared on filling up my garage with tons of stock items I wouldn't know if and when they sell.. I favor few more expencive items with couple of hundred profit each over dozens of auctions with 20-100 in profits...Cuts down on number of auctions as well....but thats just me.

[jbluntz]

Originally Posted by hitch

I, like many of you used to waste my time with Vero listings. It was a race between my listing ending 'naturally' and ebay shutting them down. I was constantly getting my accounts deleted, frozen, limited or suspended. I would end up with hundreds of dollars worth of inventory that I can't sell. Hell, I still have a **** load of un opened box set's, flat irons and chanel purses (from years ago) , nike shoes and lacoste shirts (i started wearing them lol) I used to find new vero items, do the research and figure I could sell 100 in the next month making me $20,000 easily.. well, after buying 50 units, and listing 5 of them...suspened.. oh yay.. the never ending battle continued... and i got sick and tired of being stressed at never knowing what the heck was gonig to happen the next day.

About a year to a year and a half ago, I had enough.. I went on a quest to find products that I could sell that were non-vero and still had a good enough margin to make me a few thousand a month.

What I have discovered is that it is NOT hard to find niches that you can compete in non vero and do well.


What I do is find a niche, find a manufacturer (someone who can actually make the product customized for me) and then resell it on ebay.

That's what I've been doing, and that's what works. Last year I claimed 36k from ebay alone, this will be more for sure.

Of course, every now and then I get the random supplier email with the latest and greatest bootlegs, and it's kinda fun to go through no and then, almost like an old addiction i'm fighting.. but at the end of the day, i know it won't last and it will only leave me hanging.

So my question and challenge is to someof you guys who have a well established risky vero business going on.. why don't you try to venture off vero and going legit? The amount of time you put into vero can be used a better way..

Hitch

I've been thinking the same thing but still vero is one of the best ways to come up with some quick start up cash. I was making a killing dropshipping box sets just got my powerseller status and then boom banned from 2 ebay accounts and 2 paypal. At least I managed to snag it all out of the ATM except I was 10 min. too slow to get the last $500. Now I'm up and running again should have over 100 feedback by next week buying under a dollar ebooks. Once I get enough to make myself comfortable I'll be looking for something more legit but I have a feeling the desire to sell this stuff will always be there.

[Geteven]

Hi:

Would you happen to know if there is a list somewhere of items that would be subject to a takedown right away even if the item is 100% legitimate? I've heard that some companies will take down ebay listings even if they are legitimate & noninfringing because they don't want their stuff being sold on eBay.

Thanks

[jbluntz]

I don't think there is a list you just have to learn with experience, if a listing gets removed you can just simply switch to another account and try another item for awhile or reword the listing. As for me I've been selling ⊗⊗⊗⊗ everyday on the same stealth account for over a month and haven't had a single listing removed and have %100 positive feedback also have other accounts with over 10 feedback, over 30 days old just waiting for me to switch over when the time comes.

[oompaloompa]

Originally Posted by Geteven

Hi:

Would you happen to know if there is a list somewhere of items that would be subject to a takedown right away even if the item is 100% legitimate? I've heard that some companies will take down ebay listings even if they are legitimate & noninfringing because they don't want their stuff being sold on eBay.

Thanks

there is no such list, but there are more heavy active rights owners out there, or their reporters, plus it varies from site to site, on my European accounts, there are brands I cannot sell or they will come down instantly, but I can sell them in UK, weird.

[cuddy]

I sell VERO dvd's i have been for about 6 months i bring them in and then ship i have over 300 feedback and 100% positive. But im wondering if theres a big risk of selling these like with the law...i know most of my competetion sells vero dvd's too. Just like some adivise
thanks

[philly387]

I hate talking about this because you all get confused. By "VERO dvd's", YOU actually mean "FAK*E dvd's".

"What does VeRO mean?

Verified Rights Owner. EBay gives the VeRO special privileges in determining if auctions listed by other seller's violate their intellectual property rights. If a VeRO member decides someone has violated their rights, they can unilaterally cancel the auctions of other sellers.

All you need to do to join eBay's VeRO program is register an account, create an About Me page describing your rights, and then register with eBay as the owner of whatever intellectual property you are claiming."

Source - Ebay FAQs - WikiFAQ - Answers to Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

And the risk isn't very big to be honest. You won't get in trouble unless you are selling thousands a month.

My advice, stop selling fa*ke stuff!!

I know a lot of people are in tough positions due to the economy so they believe they need to sell fa*ke stuff. So I understand why you do it, but please try to get away from it

[cuddy]

Yeah im trying to find other items to sell ive sold around 400 items in the last 3 months is the risk very big what would happen if i got reported to police?
thanks

[NZT]

Selling items that could potentially infrige "VERO" used to be High risk, high return.

Now it seems to me that selling these items is Very high risk > too much hassle.

I steer clear of these items now as the hassle used to drive me round the bend.