Thread by @orenmeetsworld

Started with fabric samples, ended up with some fire joggers… let me break down the process of sourcing and ordering an Alibaba merch item. 🧵👇

Step one— searched on Alibaba for “hypebeast”, “joggers”, “mens sweatpants” and picked six vendors with nice stuff. Contacted all of them directly asking to purchase samples.

Of those 3 had solid English and we had good communications, the others were asking a lot of questions or unresponsive. Spent $200 on ordering 2-3 samples from each of three with fabrics swatches (primarily shipping, no sample cost more than $15). Examples of pricing below.

Picked the vendor whose stuff we liked the best and ordered 1 of everything they make that was relevant ($250). Once we identified it, we sent a super detailed mock-up for quoting.

After some back and forth, we realized they couldn’t do tags we wanted even though they were on the samples. Lost a week in communication, but no sweat, we updated the design.

Next step, the full order. $1530 with shipping for 100 units. Including all our sampling costs we were at $19.80/unit

Once they arrived — photo shoot time. Flatlays, gels, plus graphic design in post. For Korova merch, it’s not about making a profit it’s about offering cool stuff our fans will like for affordable. We priced at $38, 2x sourcing, breakeven after the time for photo/design

This isn’t hard. And it’s not limited to clothes. Everything is on Alibaba. You can go cheap, premium, sustainable, electronics, furniture, you name it. Search, sample, communicate. The global economy is SO easy to access.

I’m focused on building businesses and sharing tons of resources along the way— smash that follow @orenmeetsworld