About this post
We had started online selling again in June 2016 after a break of almost five years. First, we started to sell from Germany as I saw it as a chance to visit my parents. We had definitely planned to continue then from Thailand but there should be quiet a few differences.
Goodbye Germany
The four months in Germany were an interesting time but it was time to return home, to Thailand. We had not sold that much in these four months in Germany but we still fulfilled basic standards. We had not earned that much but also hardly lost anything from our investment. We had just hit target. So, we were already extremely curious if we could continue that well in Thailand.
Online Selling from Thailand
The biggest difference between selling from Germany or Thailand is out of my view that the trust of the customers seems to vary depending on the article location. I am not sure if the only reason is the shipping duration. I ask myself if the customer is rather skeptical if the article is located in an exotic country. As we sold in Germany, it seemed a sound understanding local customers considered it as safer that the article is send within the country or from abroad. Generally, customers evaluate consciously or unconsciously the 'risk' to order from different places. Well, frankly spoken to point out extremes would you rather order an article from Syria or Liechtenstein? You might not even know where is the second country but you will probably try to avoid choice one. Trust me, all of us follow a sub- or unconscious evaluation.
There is a further obstacle through semi-professional competition within Thailand. This has on one side brought down quality trade and on the other hand risen questions about reliability. We see sadly that Thailand and good handicraft from Thailand seems to be sold at too low prices at many places. There is nothing wrong about sales margins that are multiple times higher than the production price. Do you believe that the prices of your clothes were arranged to a 100% profit? Then you are, excuse me, dreaming a lot. Thai handicraft unfortunately is sold at these too low margins. No entrepreneur in Europe or America would even open an own company if he had to face from the beginning this range of margins.There are many reasons for that and I will go into detail in a later post. In short, the travel magazine and books authors brought down the prices by suggesting travelers that they could get the items to a third of the declared price. Then, some backpackers so the opportunity to finance their journeys by bringing handicraft home and selling it cheap on flea markets. Another group of these backpackers takes it home and sells it as well online. I am sometimes shocked to see items cheaper on the net than at some tourist places within the country. Unfortunately, we have to follow this trend as it looks really unbelievable if we as manufacturer offered articles more expensive than the online retailer. Therefor, this existing semi-professional competition has brought down the prices that much that we can hardly make any more profit but can only use the internet as further advertisement. Honestly, we are even not that much interested in online retail but hope to open up contact with professional whole sale.
A third issue connected to semi-professional sellers from Thailand is that their reliability is not very high. There are for sure some buyers on the net who try to get 'free-bees' by claiming that the item has not arrived after a long time. On the other side, we know as well that there are really quiet a few sellers in Thailand that just start to try buying the article after they have already sold it. This are the two reasons why you can hardly see any seller from Thailand on ebay with a 100% positive feedback. This is unacceptable as it does not only harm this seller but affects all other sellers from Thailand, too.
Expectations
We know that it will be difficult to sell from Thailand. On the other hand, there are also some online traders here in the country who have been successful, so we do not see any reason why we should fail in our project. We have the advantage of not being only the seller but also to manufacture most of our articles. Therefor, we do not think that we will be climbing to the peak over night but that we will have a long and tough path to success but we will go for it. One of our main objectives will be to convince customers to buy from us and that is only possible if we provide quality and are reliable.
A third issue connected to semi-professional sellers from Thailand is that their reliability is not very high. There are for sure some buyers on the net who try to get 'free-bees' by claiming that the item has not arrived after a long time. On the other side, we know as well that there are really quiet a few sellers in Thailand that just start to try buying the article after they have already sold it. This are the two reasons why you can hardly see any seller from Thailand on ebay with a 100% positive feedback. This is unacceptable as it does not only harm this seller but affects all other sellers from Thailand, too.
