Lets daydream: Starting an asian-shop

[Shas]

This may sound very weird or maybe naive to you but I didn't understand it, somehow:


I was just daydreaming and thinking about how life would be if you instead of going to work somewhere for the rest of your life, start your own little shop. I am an artist so I could concentrate on my artistic career while me and my family try to bring up the shop.

By the way this whole posting is completely hypothetical.

I thought about how little the industry for asian furniture, decoration, and books (serious books not silly comics) is in Germany. There are some shops on the internet but in the whole area where I live I do not know one good asian store that sells more than ramen noodles.

Now here is my silly question:

1) The thing that makes a shop works is this basic principle. Buy stuff cheap and sell it for way more than you paid.

now where do you go if you want like japanese Wall-Scrolls or windchimes or swords etc? i mean, not just asian stuff but in general. do you just go to the factory and rub your license in their face?

as far as i understand if i buy something in asia and they ship it over here i gotta pay a) SHIPPING AND HANDLING. ARGH b) douane (TAX, HUGE TAX)

 

[Iron Chef]

If you're serious about expanding into the import business you really should start out small and online first. Before moving on to bigger and better things, you really need to see what kind of (if any) demand there is from your expected clientele. Once you've established your niche, then do some sample transactions to establish a baseline to compare costs incurred versus profits earned. If, after all is said and done you can still make a marginal profit then you might want to move on to phase 2 of establishing your presence to a larger market (both consumers and wholesalers you plan on purchasing from). It's easy enough to get started but finding a sustainable market that will support a decent return in the long-run is a whole other beast entirely. Anyways, just some ideas...

 

[Shas]

yeah i figured out ebay or an online shop would be good to figure out if there are enough willing customers

what i was wondering was "where to get stuff to sell" you know ?