Hello Ozbargain Folks, this might be a bit of a read, feel free to GPT summarise it or whatever, I hope it can help someone from making the same mistakes I did.
During Uni I tried to start a side hustle selling on eBay and my own website (tanvry.com) to help chip away at my Uni debt.
What I didn't realise was unless you're importing shipping containers worth of stock, you simply cannot compete on price.
The DIY Trap: To avoid Shopify's monthly fees, I spent tens of hours in the YouTube trenches learning how to build a WooCommerce/WordPress site from scratch and designed the logo myself in Adobe Illustrator. Thought I was being smart by "saving" money, turns out I was just burning my time for no return at all.
The Fee Stack: eBay fees (13%) + promoted listings (12%) = 25% gone before you've even touched postage. On my own site, zero organic traffic meant burning cash on ads just to get a single click.
The Free Gym: My spare rooms had boxes stacked to the ceiling, and retrieving one specific item meant a half hour gym session shifting ten 20kg boxes just to reach the bottom of the stack. After every import I'd spend hours sorting and re-labelling jumbled stock just to keep the chaos at bay.
Trying to cut down delivery costs:
In early 2024, when I first got my Ps, I'd actually drive around Victoria delivering items myself if the customer was nearby.
I eventually realised I was taking on an insane amount of unnecessary risk. Insurance excludes business use unless you bought it specifically for that, and one traffic fine or demerit point on an unfamiliar road would have cost more than 200 deliveries combined.
Using those "cheap" $49 per 20kg box (70x40x33cm plus GST) imports marketed on Facebook sounded great until I was driving out to Laverton North VIC to self-collect heavy boxes of thermal paper that had zero margin left once I factored in petrol and my own time. The box itself weighs almost 2kg, repackaging adds more on top, and the real per-kg cost creeps up to around $3.80/kg, even more if you choose to have a contractor do the job so it's tax deductible (not helpful if you're running a $6000+ loss).
Once I was even buying bottles of printer ink, refilling cartridges like 20x in those cheap HP printers and offering cheap printing off FB marketplace of 3c per A4 page. Again, an absolute time waste given the amount of times I had to refill and blot the cartridges and deal with leaks everywhere.
The Scams
Counterfeit Australia Post Stamps: Bought cheap AusPost stamps on eBay that turned out to be fake which has actually made the news. Nearly had to get police involved, destroyed the lot, took a substantial loss. . In hindsight I should've clocked the moment eBay charged me GST on them, dead giveaway they were from an overseas seller, not Australia Post.
The DJI Battery Bricking: Some factory was harvesting genuine authentication chips off real DJI batteries and transplanting them into cheaper cells so they'd pass as legitimate. Clever, until DJI pushed a firmware update that bricked the lot overnight. Instant paperweights, and even more money for paying for customers return postage to send them back once they got bricked in late 2024.
The Foshan Factory: Later moved to PC fan business since I was building PCs as a fun hobby thing and thought I could expand on that.
I actually travelled all the way to Foshan China where they make most of the products, and got the full factory tour fans everywhere, everything looked completely legit. Paid via Alipay funded through Wise to keep transfer fees low.
They never shipped. Went to the police; they gave the guy a phone call, he never picked up and they told me it was a civil matter.
During that business trip, I'd still be heading to the Cainiao pickup point every few days to sift through 100+ small parcels, checking each one by hand for broken or substandard items and that was before even dealing with suppliers who'd just ship outright junk or missing items and empty boxes if you didn't stay on top of them.
And here's what people don't realise about Alipay, unlike PayPal, zero buyer protection. No disputes, no chargebacks. Once the money's gone, it's gone. It's like digital cash.
On top of all that, I imported a batch of PC cases where some arrived smashed from transit. Another loss I just had to eat. Another mistake with uncertified hot glue guns and sealers which had to be disposed of due to the fact that you need Australian Certification to sell these, those ones you buy off eBay, they're not legal to sell. This is due to them using mains power of over 230V
I wish I'd discovered this community sooner. Looking back at the deals posted here, I honestly believe I could have sourced items cheaper on OzBargain than by importing them myself and dealing with all the customs paperwork. Lesson well and truly learnt.
I've lost thousands of dollars and hours of my life doing this, specifically the savings I'd built up through high school.
But honestly, this has taught me more about the brutal reality of business than any Commerce unit in my degree ever could. Consider it my very expensive, very physically exhausting real-world MBA.
Hope this helps others from making the same mistake.
At this point I just got to try clear everything at cost or even below cost for bulk orders and hopefully can recover some money back. Alas, at least I know I've tried.
It's not a loss.
Trust me it is a priceless life experience. Most people jeer on the side about hindsight bias because it's instinctive to want others to fail.
Use it to pivot on another business angle with what you learnt. I've never net a single successful person who didn't burn through a few train wrecks before they got it right.