How to Start a Folding Wagon Cart Business (From Designing to Selling)

1. Decide Your Distribution Channels–Online or Offline

Online business：

If you search online you can see there are a lot of platforms for you to sell. You can create product listings on eBay or Amazon, you can also build your own online store on Google as well if you do not want to use these marketplaces.

If you open your store on C2C e-commerce platforms like eBay or Amazon, then everything is preset and optimized for you–the shop templates, listing templates. So, you don’t have to worry a lot about store designing. Also, you will be automatically included in their marketing campaigns, and your folding wagons will be promoted.

I generally don’t suggest starting folding wagon businesses with an independent Google store. The C2C platforms will bring you a huge amount of traffic while you have to invest a lot in the early stage to lead traffic to your store if you establish an independent store. The worst is if you don’t optimize your independent store properly, you may invest a lot but result in no profit.

Offline business：

You can open a store or set up a stall to sell the folding wagon for small profits but quick turnover.
If you want to start a high-end folding wagon business, you can private label your folding wagon and open an independent brand store. 

 

2. Do the Market Research 

For a small business to be successful, it must solve a problem, fulfill a need or offer something the market wants. So do the research and find out what the market requires is the most basic step for your folding wagon business.

Primary Research: 

The first step is to gather current sales data and analyze the effectiveness of current practices. You should also take competitors’ plans into consideration, in order to know the current situation about your competitors. As the Chinese saying goes, “know the enemy and know yourself, and you can fight a hundred battles with no danger of defeat”

Except for knowing your competitor’s situation, you should also have a deep understanding of your customers’ demands. So you can prepare the following questions below for your potential customers: 

• What factors do you consider when purchasing folding wagon?
• What kind of function do you expect most for folding wagon?
• What is the appropriate price for different kinds of folding wagon?
• ……

In addition to the face-to-face questionnaire, online research is also a great way to get an objective view of market trends and needs.

Online Research:

When doing online market research, there are three main points you need to pay attention- visit big C2C platforms to see what are the best-selling folding wagon, follow the comments below the popular folding wagons, and notice the keywords that pop up in the search bar when you search for “folding wagon”. These are where you can get important information.

Amazon Bestsellers list: As to online research, you can go to the big sales platforms to find out what styles are the best selling. For example, you can refer to Amazon’s bestseller list and wish list (wish list) to see which style sells better and which function folding wagon is more demanded.

Customers reviews: Besides, in order to stand out in the fierce competition, an important point is to do what others cannot do, that is to make up for the shortcomings of others’ folding wagon, thus you will be able to compete with rivals and win the favor of customers.

The existing folding wagon always have their flaws, some folding wagon broken  easily and some may easy to deform. You can go to the Amazon and read through the reviews below the folding wagon listings. As a well-developed C2C e-commerce website, customer reviews on Amazon are of great reference significance. 

Those comments pointing out the shortcomings of the folding wagon can be your treasure as long as you can summarize the shortcomings and figure a way to improve the folding wagon design or fabrics to optimize the folding wagon and meet the demand of customers.  

Keywords prompt: when you search “folding wagon” in the search box, it will show a list of related keywords prompt, which are the frequently searched keywords by customers. In this way, you can learn what are the most demanded folding wagon.

3. Pricing the folding wagons

Pricing is another essential element besides the folding wagon itself in the  business. We are living in an age when people can easily compare prices online without going to the shop and finding the exact same sock. So, the price of folding wagon should not be determined according to your preference for folding wagon but should be reasonably priced according to the general pricing in the market and the wholesale cost of your folding wagons.

Pricing for regular  folding wagons: 

Many of my client’s wholesale regular folding wagon for their business. The wholesale prices in China are about $30-$45 per piece, while some can get a lower price with a larger quantity. Those small business owners will price their folding wagon 2-3 times their wholesale cost, and the brand folding wagons will be priced 4-5 times the wholesale cost.

Pricing for high-end/ classy folding wagons:

Some outdoor folding wagon require high functionality, those wagons will go through some special process to achieve these functions, thus the production cost increase.

In addition, the expensive materials of some classy folding wagon also add to the cost.The wholesale cost for those high- end folding wagon from Chinese factories can be more than $90/pc.The retail price of functional folding wagon can be 6 times the wholesale cost.

4. Decide Where to Source folding wagon with Competitive Prices

Dropshipping? Local wholesale? Wholesale directly from China? Indeed, the answer is not the same for different scale of business. Small businesses need the smallest MOQ and more styles to test the market, while long-term businesses are more likely to pursue less cost to improve the profit margin. 

Start-up period：If you’ve been thinking about venturing into the folding wagon business but lack of experience and afraid to stock up, then drop-shipping is good for you. Drop-shipping folding wagons is a low-risk, low-cost business idea for first-time businessmen like you.

Steady period: 

In this stage, you may have accumulated some experience and have a certain understanding of the folding wagon market. You can choose to buy wholesale folding wagon from your own wholesale website in your country or from a wholesale market in local.  

Long-term business period：

Made in China is undoubtedly the most cost-effective choice for you. To wholesale from China, you don’t have to worry about coming to China and find suppliers, you can just stay at home and search online for the chinese wholesale website(alibaba/ aliexpress/DHgate ect),or search for Hapi Outdoor to help you supply folding wagons.

5. Marketing  for Your Online Store

the main online retail methods are the following 2 channels:

#1  Independent Google store

#2  C2C e-commerce platforms like Amazon, eBay

Now It’s Your Turn  

Starting and running a business is not easy. Before you start, make sure you learn the basics of how business works. Hope this guide will help you to stay ahead of your competitors.

If you have any questions or want to wholesale or customize folding wagons from China, feel free to  contact us and leave a comment.