I am in Darjeeling, India right now, and I think I have found a feasible business. I have no business experience or business education (my undergrad was bio-psychology). If it matters, I am 23. Anyways, on to the idea.

From stores here you can buy really nice wool sweaters for 300 ruppees (It works out to about $7.50 U.S.). Things here are ridiculuosly cheap, and the mountain villagers make clothing for pracitically nothing.

Searching on Ebay, I have found comparable sweaters being sold from ebay stores for about $35, and I think I have seen similar sweaters sold at home (toronto) for about $50.

I am thinking I could spend a bit of time, find the producers, and buy sweaters (and other clothing) from them for hopefully $5 a piece. Then, if I paid the shipping, which I imagine would be about $10 (sending some small scarfs home was about half that), I could stand to make $15 a sweater. Scarfs, hats, and other clothing is also available.

Ideally, I would eventually hire someone here to purchase the sweaters and ship them out, and I could manage the ebay part abroad, eventually even phasing that out, making the business residual income.

If there is any interest, I will try and post a picture of one of the sweaters tommorow.

It seems like you could make a few dollars doing this, but it doesn't seem scalable. Not unless you build a sweater factory sweat shop.

hey I'm interested post those pictures.

spex,
I agree, it is growth limited. I would be happy if it worked out to 100 sweaters a month, making me 1500 a month with little effort.

heresy,
Will try and post a pic later today for you.

thanks for the responses guys.

i would try to find people who would buy 100s/month from you for $15-20...then u make money for just shipping the sweaters to them...they can do the work of selling each one on ebay, in stores, wherever

find a few buyers and sell 500/month for 5-10 profit = 2500-5k/month revenue stream that is relatively passive

u just need to find sources to buy 500/month from for 5 or so each and then the cheapest way to ship those in timeframe that works for your buyers

Indian Sweat Shop = $$$$ Profits

Find some good child labor and you will be rich before you know it.

Sheesh.

You no more need to create a sweatshop to be profitable in the garment business than you do in the automobile business.

More info?

Sorry no pictures yet. Will get on it today.

Nicholas,
you make good sense. Any idea how I would find someone to do that?
Do you think tariffs will be a problem? 1-2 items can be marked as a gift and be tariff free, but sending a large amount of items changes that. Will try and look into that more...

more info please?

Here is the sweater. From the picture it looks drab, however, in person it's much more comely. Originally I planned to take several photos, but this one took 15 minutes to put up. The sweater is extremely comfortable, warm, and fits loose without being baggy.

ITS COZY

I'm in thailand and know a 4 exporting clothing.

I know the 4 people making are $X,XXX, $XX,XXX, $XXX,XXX and $X,XXX,XXX each per year exporting clothing. It all depends how much effort you want to put in it. Ebay is the easiest to set up but won't show the greatest longterm profits. The guy making $X,XXX,XXX goes directly through the factory. The other guys work with wholesalers and have websites . The guy who is making just a few thousand just buys from malls and on the street on the side then sells on Ebay. Make sure you look around at prices because you will be surprised how ridiculusly cheap these things are. I believe they are even cheaper in India.

What kind of information are you looking for?

Come to my factory. I guarantee you won't think "sweat shop."

The workers all earn *well* over minimum wage, work a standard-length workweek, get paid according to the law for their voluntary overtime when they work it, and receive paid company holidays and vacation each year.

If they save us production costs by improving the efficiency on their teams, we share the savings with them in the form of a production bonus on top of their standard hourly wage.

We sell products in the same price range as OP is looking to, we manufacture in the US, and we're profitable.

You don't have to chain garment workers to their desks, leave them without heat or air conditioning, forcing them to squint in low-light conditions for 16 hour shifts 6 days a week to be successful. Companies that do that get a lot of media attention, but are a distinct minority in the industry.

Hi
I from Darjeeling, I am really happy to read your comment about Darjeeling's sweaters and I am interested to join you.However I can help you with the home made Darjeeling sweaters if you want. There are many women who makes sweaters in my neighborhood.Please reply me on this

First thing: don't compare prices to what they sell for in downtown Toronto. That means nothing. It's akin to saying that a can of soda sells for 10 cents at Costco, but $4 at some tourist trap shop. If you're not in a tourist trap shop, you won't be getting $4 for your soda.

Instead, compare to the exact place where you plan to sell. How much are they actually selling for on Ebay?

One more thing: international shipping from India sucks. I have send small packages to US from tons of countries. Sometimes, it was slow, but I never had any problems even shipping stuff from Zimbabwe. But in India, 2 of my 4 packages arrived crushed and destroyed, and 1 didn't arrive at all. Indian people also have a very low opinion on Indian post.

FYI this thread was 5 years old before being bumped today.

12 years bump .
Congrats.
I wonder what is the record