What seems weird about this is that he did very little of actual 'beating Kickstarters to the market'. If you read the article, he is just selling things that are already listed on alibaba(so it's the chinese manufacturers who are beating Kickstarters to the market).
So the question is: where does the margin of the guy in the article come from? If you read the article, he bought the toys for 2.5$ or so on alibaba and sold them for 20$. That's quite a markup for...some marketing. You could at any time probably have gone to aliexpress and gotten the same thing for 4$ including shipping.
I think the answer is that not enough people in China are savy in how to market their products to US+EU. And not enough people from US+EU are aware of the gadget candy-store that is Aliexpress. The overall profit is too small for a large company to swoop in, so what is left are some shady indiegogo campains (that try to sell a product that is already offered on alibaba) and the kind of company portrayed in this article.
Ordering things on Aliexpress as a "normal" customer is not a great shopping experience because:
- there are thousands of sellers selling the same thing and finding the one that isn't a scam is difficult -- not difficult as in, flying to Mars, but harder than ordering from Amazon FBA (although AMZ is getting worse by the minute in this regard)
- shipping times are VERY long (3 to 5 weeks) unless you're willing to double the purchase price for express shipping (which will still take around a week)
Therefore, there is opportunity for arbitrage where you order lots of gadgets and then sell them in your local market with very good shipping times (and less choice between competing, identical offers).
So the question is: where does the margin of the guy in the article come from? If you read the article, he bought the toys for 2.5$ or so on alibaba and sold them for 20$. That's quite a markup for...some marketing. You could at any time probably have gone to aliexpress and gotten the same thing for 4$ including shipping.
I think the answer is that not enough people in China are savy in how to market their products to US+EU. And not enough people from US+EU are aware of the gadget candy-store that is Aliexpress. The overall profit is too small for a large company to swoop in, so what is left are some shady indiegogo campains (that try to sell a product that is already offered on alibaba) and the kind of company portrayed in this article.