Serious question for all you knowledgable folk:
These lanterns he’s selling. 2 for £10.
Yes I appreciate they are/look plastic but how on earth does anyone make a profit on them?
Manufacturer,Supplier,Retailer(IW)..all need a slice so I am really baffled how they can all make a profit on them?
I know they are horrible and I wouldn’t want one or two tbh but they are really cheap.
Loss leader type sale? Just to get people involved with IW
Because they buy it for pennies, and sell it for pounds - tens or hundreds, depending on the item.
Suppliers, middle-men, brands is very much the original IW model, and TJC is so (for all we criticise) financially successful because they went a different route. They followed the first bit of market stall rule book "pile it high", but ignored the second "sell it low".
In most instances (some collagen brands, watches, clothing, drones, and a few other bits aside)
they are the supplier. They buy/import/source stock direct from China (or India, Vietnam, etc) in bulk at wholesale prices, direct from the manufacturer of whatever generic tat it is, e.g., usb cables, 2002-era dash cams, solar lights, plastic thing with bluetooth in…
They also get "branded" stock from the same UK-based clearance auctions that places like Home Bargains, Poundland, etc get their stock.
For the vast majority of IW3's electrical stock - vacuums, air-fryers, solar lights, etc – can be found under various different abstract pretend-y brand names on Amazon or eBay from UK companies doing the same thing as IW3: importing and reselling.
This is why you can also go to AliExpress or Temu and buy the exact same item(s) closer to the cost price TJC/IW pay.
For example, the corded stick vacuum Ideal World was selling a few nights ago @ £49.99 — an "absolute giveaway of a price", they said. You can buy the same one on Temu for £12.99 plus £2 p&p — and
that Temu seller is also making a margin, which shows you how much more IW's is.
Ideal World has bigger overheads, but also big-heads… so don't feel obligated to pay excessively more to keep TJC's owners filthy rich, and shysters like Pedro and Jacks in cloud cuckoo land. If you really want to to help fund Pedro's Patio Door surgery, buy a Cameo video from him once in a while
.
There is some suggestion that when we see products with a dispatch date that's …a few weeks post order, that drop-shipping may be involved. AliExpress do offer that as a service, so everything arrives to the customer with the shop's branding on, etc but it is dispatched from China.