Alibaba and the group buy mentality

So my brother is starting up a niche retail venture and it involves buying bulk quantities of materials and packaging from manufacturers primarily in China. This has both of us ranging the no man's land that is Alibaba trying to put deals together.  

In the past I've been involved in several group buys and both saved a bunch and been able to get stuff that otherwise wouldn't have been available otherwise.  Unfortunately,  every time I see a good deal on something I revert back to the group buy mentality and I am struggling to not spend thousands to save tens.

Case in point: 1.5M wide sheetmetal finger brake. Weird size, right? Available for $340 each. Shipping to Houston,  where my brother could pick it up at the port is $460. 

$800 for a 60" pan break is pretty good.  If I knew 100% what I was getting I'd say it's even a bargain. 

But shipping two of them is only $580. So the first one is $800, but if I get two they are only $650 each, which is almost awesome.   By the time I get to 5 units the price evens out to about $525 each,  which actually is awesome. Sign me up!

But that's $3k out of pocket and I have to sell 4 random import pan brakes that are a weird size to recoup my investment, plus drag at least one giant metal thing back from TX over the holidays.  I don't see that conversation going over well with the MRS.

 Moral of the story: some people should stay away from Alibaba.  Unless 4 of you want pan brakes, then it's "Woo-hoo for group buys."

Well, if you're picking them up in Houston and bringing them north, you'll likely go right by my house....

I was looking at the glass tiles with seashells in them for the shower back when i did my bathroom.  They’re $22ish a square foot here already, but if i buy 10k square feet on alibaba they are $2.10 a square foot shipping included.  But I really don’t want to be in the business of selling niche tiles.  

private labeling..  FBA ... Amazon.  Brakes are too big, but its the same idea.

https://www.thepennyhoarder.com/make-money/side-gigs/private-label-products-on-amazon/

done.. so.. so.. often these days.

We've played in this space a bit.

What you want to do is start a Group Buy Portal. We used to have something like this on our own site. You list an upcoming GB with product information, minimum quantity and current sales. People can sign up and submit payment information. If you get your minimum, then you collect that payment and ship the parts. If you don't, you don't collect.

Collecting the payment info is important, because if you just go with the "sure, I'll buy one!" technique you'll have a lot of failed transactions. Basically, it's Kickstarter.

Set it up right and you'll end up running GBs for other people.