I live up in the northern most part of Maine, bordering New Brunswick, Canada. I just bought your book, Wholesale Liquidations Exposed, and it is excellent. Thank you very much. I only wish I had found you several months ago.

Here is where I am in this whole thing… I bought into a product locater business opportunity, as a Broker. I ordered the start up kit, as well as the web site, and the whole shebang. I own my own domain, Maine Liquidators.

Over the past few weeks, I have forwarded them MANY very good finds, and all retail packaged, new and in good quantity, as well as arranged for product samples to be sent to this parent company.

Aside from the two week holiday they close down on, I have had no luck getting anything done through them, at least up to this point. I am quickly losing faith in them and the legitimacy of their operation, even before I stumbled upon your very excellent website and bought your book.

I have several very interested customers who have been up very friendly and willing to work with me, and they want to move their inventory fast, and some of it is very large!

I am stuck now, as I simply am not sure what to do next. I am not able to warehouse or buy liquidations myself, so the broker option is what i am most likely to succeed in doing.

I want to see if i can salvage this and make it work for me. Being a broker seems like the best thing for me…and any insights or feedback you can give me would be most appreciated. Thank you very much, and i wish you a happy and profitable new year.

Sincerely….Jim

Here is my response to Jim:

Hello Jim! Thanks for the compliment on our guide. I am sorry to hear you have not had much luck with the Zaken Business opportunity, have you thoroughly read the portion of our guide where I show you exactly how to become a liquidation merchandise broker? You truly do not need to buy a program where you are locating merchandise for a third party, you can locate merchandise and find buyers yourself!

If you will pardon the pun, you can salvage this opportunity you bought into and go out on your own becoming a Broker. It is hard work, but you do not need some special program!

From here out you will need to invest lots of time hunting for merchandise and connecting with buyers. As a broker you will have to dig deep and investigate wholesale merchandise sources daily. You will find merchandise from many sources including manufacturers, distributors, retailers and importers. How do you find this stock? Well….lots of cold calling, internet searching, and in some instances traveling.

Here is what I would do first:

Try to get a refund from this program that you bought into; if that is not possible, I would simply count this as a learning experience and move on.

I would then quickly set up a small website, like a virtual business card, introducing yourself to both potential suppliers and liquidation buyers. You can use your website to explain how you can assist wholesalers, large retailers and manufacturers moving excess stock. Your website can also advertise the current liquidation merchandise you are trying to re-wholesale.

Next Step:

Start collecting virtual inventory…get your stock lined up. You can use many of the liquidators to blind ship for you including Via Trading, AML, Topper, Countryside Closeouts (there are others).

Call on catalog companies (there are thousands) that have stock ready to dump for .05-.10 on the dollar. This can be a goldmine for you especially if you find a niche catalog. I am going to give you one to start with, ok? This company retails small gifts through a school fund raising program called Elf Shelf (http://www.elfshelf.com). Elf Shelf liquidates stock each year that goes unsold; it is dollar store merchandise, but there are some gems to be found. I have purchased thousands of dollars worth of goods from their warehouse. They will even offer terms if you ares a legitimate business……shoot an email to them from their website and let them know you are interested in buying and helping them move closeouts. Yes, tell them you are interested in buying because it really is the truth…you will buy when you find a buyer!

Then consider:

You need buyers right? Well the only way that will happen is by purchasing traffic. You can do this by becoming a member of either Wholesale central, CloseoutCentral or TheIMASD.Com. I would recommend IMASD as this is where I started. If you want to talk about a discounted membership, please send me an email.

Jim, go ahead and ask more questions by email…. I will help you along the way. Looking forward to hearing about your success!