Shaf Rasul
Serial entrepreneur and BBC Online Dragon Shaf Rasul is launching a new website eStock.co.uk, selling bankrupt and excess inventory to other online sellers to re sell on online and offline marketplaces. Shaf’s company e-Net distribution already supplies tens of millions of pounds of bankrupt and excess stock to some of the biggest retailers in the country. His new eStock business will open another channel allowing him to sell to smaller online retailers.
If you are a seller you will know that sourcing your own stock at the right price is key to your business making a profit and the price must be right. We know how hard this is and the concept of being able to go online to eStock and buy your stock cheap enough to still make great profit is a phenomenal idea.
eStock.co.uk
The idea of eStock is to have bulk lots available of product categories including apparel, computers, electronics, house wares, industrial equipment, vehicles, work wear and much more. Bulk lots on eStock will be sold by the truckload, pallet, or small package, and conditions range from new in a box to customer returns and used. We will have thousands of lines available for sale. You will be able to Buy it Now or Make an Offer.
Shaf explained: “I know how hard it is when you want to buy stock on which you can make a substantial profit but don’t know where to get it from. No one wants to share their supplier’s details.”
Shaf’s prior eBay experience
This is not the first business Rasul has set up that targets ecommerce retailers. Many people start selling online from their conservatories or garages and then they need something bigger, to hold their stock. Rasul knows this only too well. In 2007 he set up a purpose built industrial and office village aimed to house online sellers. This ecommerce incubator development was to be known as E Net Park.
This has allowed several ecommerce businesses to grow overnight allowing them to save with critical courier and distribution costs. This was achieved by a dozen eBay businesses working together to push up the volume of goods requiring carriage and renegotiate the charges. You can read more about the project on Shaf’s blog.
Shaf told us “A lot of sellers I speak with admit they sell huge volumes of stock but still have cash flow problems. They have a means to sell the stock but cant source it cheap enough to sell to make a reasonable profit that’s where we hope to fit in”.
Be first to access eStock inventory
Estock plans to be fully up and running in the next 3 months. Beta testing starts in a month. While eStock is in its beta testing phase they will be inviting buyers onto the site by invitation only. For a guaranteed invite visit eStock and use the reference ‘tamebay’ in the reference box.
Like eStock on Facebook
Follow eStock on twitter.
Visit the eStock website
13 Responses
If it’s open to every seller, so they all buy from this site, how does anybody get a competitive advantage?
As we deal in Bankrupt stock. When it’s gone it’s gone. So for example if we have a job lot of 30 iPods in stock. Once they are sold they sold. So really the advantage rests in being the first person to buy the stock. We will have thousand of these joblots listed on the site and each one will be unique. If you have any more questions please don’t hesitate to give me a shout.
Chloe
Tel: 0131 347 0458
We registered yesterday, however no acknowledgment received and therefore we are not able to view stock or prices. Not impressed so far.
Hi we should be going into beta test mode in the next month. We will send out invites to browse and purchase from the site to all users who registered from tamebay. If you have any further questions please dont hesitate to contact us on 0131 347 0458.
Chloe
ps: as long as you use the reference tamebay when you register you will get an invite
Invitation only suggests ‘exclusivity’ and although many readers of Tamebay are professional sellers, not all are. The topics and subjects covered in features and articles include a wide range of online selling subjects and the blog attracts many varied sellers, big and small.
Why would including Tamebay in the reference box guarantee an invite?
If you are open to small and medium size sellers then “Invitation only” really doesn’t seem to have any value.
We don’t have any back links to our shop from Tamebay and I will be amazed if we don’t get invited to join via regular email marketing. I seem to get invited to join some group or organisation every day with promises that I will save £’s in fees, email marketing, cross border selling and stock management, etc.
Isn’t this just a ‘Permission Marketing ploy’ and dangling an “Invitation only” carrot without any available stock to view a poor start to developing a buyer/ seller relationship.
If I had a £1 for every ‘Promise to the future’ I have seen, read or heard I would be a rich man.
If you have stock to sell I’m sure that Tamebay readers would be amongst the first to view / purchase, but my business email address is only used for business and I do not want to clutter it with adverts and promotions.
There are lots of these so called bargain bankrupt stock sites, and you end up buying a bundle of items, half will make profit (at a push) and the other half will not sell, have weird sizes etc. I personally find it cheaper to go to live auctions, and view and decide the price I want to pay.
However I wait and see how good this site is. I am sure it will live and die by the customers that buy and review it.
Just had my invite registered last night – got to be worth a go. Don’t know what all this fuss is about – get on with it – if its good you will buy – if not don’t buy! simples………..
lots of sites like this already stockshifters (whos deals and stock quality is not as good as it once was I think) etc.
whether their any good remains to be seen
but generally middle man selling and taking a commission from experience, just a case of trying to find where it comes from
whether this is any different remains to be seen
Perhaps someone ought to go over the front page with a spell checker, doesn’t inspire confidence. 🙂
Shaf Rasul did not mention he has struggled to have this site up and running for quite a few years. Reason being he doesn’t have access to the stocks. Use at your own risk. I wouldn’t bank on it. In any case, why would you market a site that isn’t even live yet? Makes no sense to me at all.