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Enveloped.com.au Launching Pre-Sale - Items from $3 Delivered

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The website launches today. It sells small things in envelop size, shipping free. It's for saving people hassle to go and get very small things.

Examples of pre-sale deals:

$3 delivered - Kraft paper notebook ×2
$4 delivered - Permanent Marker ×3
$7 delivered - Cushion Cover
$9 delivered - Inflatable pillow for air travel
$8 delivered - Sports Armband Pouch for mobile phones
$36 delivered - Aluminum Bluetooth keyboard
$40 delivered - foldable wireless mouse with built-in lithium battery

The catch is, during pre-sale, most items take 3 weeks to arrive (some a few days). By July the store should go normal and deliver everything in 3 days. tip: you can only browse the in stock products, for quick delivery.

Despite running the store I am not really good at picking bargains from my own store. Now I simply sell them at the price it costs me to send them and I'll count the sales record to find bargains.

First deal I post. Kindly bare with me:)

Related Stores

Enveloped
Enveloped

closed Comments

  • Hey I remember when you were still thinking about making this website in the forums, will check it out soon!

  • +2

    Deliverrrrrrred

  • +2

    Good luck! hope it all works out for you :)

  • +5

    So is this the online version of the local $2 shop, but with postage included in price of item ?

    • -3

      Sounds like my plan - I didn't know there are $2 shops, haven't seen one of them in Brisbane. But I also plan to cover quality goods. The Lenovo mouse for example in my shop is a high-end quality stuff.

      • +4

        I didn't know there are $2 shops

        hmmmm… so you are saying you haven't got a clue who you are competing against ?

      • +5

        There is literally a $2 shop in every shopping centre in Brisbane.

      • -1

        when they say $2 shops, doesn't mean all the items are $2. You must have seen Crazy Clarks or The Reject Shop?

        • Yeah, so they are alike. Yes I meant to offer similiar stuff as Reject Shop:)

        • Although there are places like that. Theres one near cheltenham station in Melbourne. In the 20 minutes i was in there, I heard at least 15 people ask "how much is this?"
          to be told
          "it's all $2"

  • +6

    All of the items i just looked at can be had for less than half the price on Ali Express.

    The bonds socks were on offer from Coles last week for $3.50 less than you are charging.

    The catch is, during pre-sale, most items take 3 weeks to arrive

    So you'll order them in from somewhere like ali-express with the funds already paid then wait for them to send it to you then you to send it to us?

    • +3

      Yeah, the bonds socks were $5.50 at Coles, plus you would earn fly buys points on top, and if you had the special coupons those points multiplies. Agree with gooddealmate.

      • -3

        You have to go to Coles. I am interested to observe whether people need this service. The selling point being saving the hassle and I'd like to be branded as a service provider.

        • +1

          There's this service called Coles Online, free delivery first shop, and free delivery Wednesday.

        • +7

          Need what service? An Australian business that resells random stuff from Chinese wholesalers? That's not a service. There are already thousands of these businesses in existence, you are not any different to any of them.

        • @deal junkie:
          To be fair, he's not really competing against Coles Online - and whatsmore they have minimum $ amounts for delivery which don't make it as viable as buying 1 or 2 from him.

        • @deal junkie: Yes I use it too. Free delvery on Wednesday requires >100AUD purchase and I don't think anyone would spend near $100 on my site. I think we are targeting different cases.

        • +1

          @pmupsinep: Interestingly, Jack Ma of the Alibaba.com site said that there is a big opportunity for westerners to sell products to people in China. Maybe @zhangweiwu should figure out how to wholesale Australian products to resell random stuff to Chinese customers. I'm thinking Ugg Boots, Kangaroo Jerky, and Vegemite…

        • +1

          @twocsies: Yes many are already doing it, high competition. I'm observing too and wish to partner local suppliers for that. Many commonplace Aussie goods sell well in China. Depite that I dislike Jack's survivalist personality (e.g. he is flattering towards communist party), he is right on the opportunity to wholesale stuff to China.

          Yes, Ugg Boots can be a good option. Vegemite … perhaps not. I tried to recommend opal, but didn't see much interest. Did you read this story of Smorgons selling cows? They reads authentic to me on their description of Chinese customers. It's sad that a big & old country could polluted their own land beyond repair, but the result is that Aussie produces will come right after education and mines to be the 3rd biggest Aussie export to China. Somehow I thought Australians like farming, so it should be good news.

    • +1

      yes, but aliexpress don't have to pay GST, import duty, and AusPost, which is more expensive than China's international shipping, together amounts about 1/2 of the price. When you receive I garantee you receive it from AusPost as local delivery with AUD paid for postage.

      • +5

        I'm all for supporting Aussie businesses, but to expect us to pay more than double for something identical direct from China is a bit much.

        • +1

          Unfortunately the issue isn't in our hands. International import-duty-free for online retail is an Aussie policy; extremely-cheap international delivery is a contract between China post and other countries; AusPost charge a lot to domestic delivery; not to mention the "Export Rebate", where Chinese government refund a percentage to exporters…

        • +6

          @zhangweiwu:

          Hey look, i like the idea of your website but unfortunately you are pitching it to the wrong crowd. Its a bargain website and charging more than double because you are an Aussie site doesn't really constitute a bargain.

        • @gooddealmate: I can't do any better. I have zero net profit to make in the sale. Experienced ebay sellers will be able to tell. But I guess it's in your right to decide that this isn't a bargain.

        • @zhangweiwu:

          Harsh crowd haha. I think the biggest issue at the moment is that the shipping time currently of 3 weeks basically negates the whole reason of paying more for the product. If people are paying double for australian stock they're buying it to receive it way faster than importing it from China.

        • -3

          @ohhidayo:

          Thanks for the comment. I guess I'll be able to do a not-so-cheap-but-really-fast campaign in the next try - if the business model is basically working and that I get an idea of cost structure of running an online store. It's all new to me.

      • You don't have to pay gst/import duty also so that is 15% difference there. You register for GST when you sell $75k in a single financial year. I'm confident you are going to import less than $1k AUD per shipment so no duty.

        Also did you out your abn on the website? I think that is an ozb requirement.

        • ABN is on the website footer, together with phone number. The other parts I'll reply when I re-studied my "Doing business in Australia" booklet. Technically I haven't imported yet, the first stock (1/3 of catalogue) came in two suitcases with me from overseas (yes I am that cute). I never reported tax neither and will experience the horry or joy of it soon. But on the other hand there are other costs, e.g. I didn't add the 5%-8% false missing claim surplus suggested to my earlier post, thinking it can't be that bad. More cost structure discussion is here; it's a well from which I am still drinking. Don't worry that I get rich from holes here and there. I am pretty sure I will lose money from per-sale:) Or it would be too easy.

  • +5

    i won't neg this deal (yet), but will say that you need to rethink the way you list your items. you state that today 13.06.2015 is the launch day, but your prices on items like http://www.enveloped.com.au/product/aluminum-foldable-blueto… and http://www.enveloped.com.au/product/wireless-folding-touch-m… shows a "strike through" price. that is misleading pricing and illegal in oz. https://www.accc.gov.au/consumers/prices-receipts/price-disp….

    btw
    i do like your idea.

    edit
    what did you use for ecommerce?

    • Thank for pointing out the accc link. The crossed out price is set for July 1st. I guess I am a liar if the price doesn't revert to it by July 1st. How serious is the cross out issue?

      Also, the website has been there: posted 20 days ago with the now-crossed-out price, only I didn't announce the opening till now (but 2 people purchased before opening announcement anyway and I deliverred, e.g. this guy James who even left a review:
      http://www.enveloped.com.au/product/wireless-bluetooth-mouse…
      and this guy too:
      https://www.ozbargain.com.au/node/194994#comment-2778495

      I use woocommerce, as you can tell from reading HTML header:)

      • I'm detecting a bit a sockpuppeting here:

        Your original post from the 20th May

        † Everything on that website is out-of-stock, because I haven't started

        Yet a few days later someone says..

        I checked out the website a few days ago, when it was first posted. I saw some bottle openers that looked pretty cool, so I went to buy them. Before I went through paypal I realised the store wasn't really open. I didn't really give it much more thought as I hadn't paid for anything.
        Today I received a bottle opener and a credit card tool along with a note saying thanks for checking out the store.

        • That customer is not me:) I just (permenantly) migrated to Australia in 2014 and that account was registerred in 2010. But should I be flattered that you actually read my post:)

          I added some stock soon after the first post. The date of his post fits my narrative.

      • heh. i can't tell one platform from another. i've only used ebay. how easy or difficult is woocommerce to setup?
        thanks.

        • It's easy, but I am even faster because I am a professional web designer. Lynda has a few good tutorials on how to work with woocommerce. If you are in QLD (or you pretend to be) you can access lynda for free - mentioned in one of the previous deals.

  • a few problems, search Wallet and I find a passport wallet and a tool for a wallet, but not the leather wallet you sell.

    • Fixed! Thank you! I went through the catalogue 2 times but still miss here and there…

  • +1

    Meh. Let me know when you have some aussie bargains

  • +1

    Good luck with your enterprise, mate!
    btw, you missing out on a huge marketing potential - all you have to do is to add an extra "o" in your domain name.

    • Ah, where to put the 'o'?

      • you'll get more joy from discovering it yourself! but, just in case, think about the most popular item on Ozbargain…

        • Lol when I read the title of this post I misread it as 'that' item :D

        • Thinking for 1/2 hour now. No clue. The most popular items here is usually electronics like Xiaomi power bank (shoppingexpress gets into daily newsletter everytime with it) and free eBooks (which I am learning e-commerce from)

          DO you mean female by 'o'? Last ozbargain survey shows there are already more female users than males:)

        • @zhangweiwu:

          Hint: Batteries

        • @millzy: Got it. Eneloop. Wondwer why I forgot to put them in my catalogue:)

  • All items on this link has 3-day¹ delivery: http://www.enveloped.com.au/stock/

    I didn't put it up on the deal at the outset (and got negged for slow delivery). Took me the whole day to tame the beast (ecommerce software) and is able to list quick-deliver products separately. I feel silly not getting it right the first time.

    ¹. 3 business days, for purchases made before mid-day.

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