Man who buys cheap stuff from Poundland and sells it online is now making £500,000 a year
I'm sure loads of people have come up with a seemingly surefire way to get rich on the internet.
You might try investing in cryptocurrencies, chucking old Beanie Babies on Facebook Marketplace or even signing up to a questionable, ad-riddled site to sell some feet pics. Admit it, it's crossed your mind.
The point is, there are a lot of different ways people try and go about earning money online. But not many are actually successful, like Zain Shah turned out to be.
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Just over a decade ago, Shah was working in a telecom company making a little over £7 an hour, but he saw an opportunity one day when a customer asked for a specific kind of earphones with a zip, which his store didn't have.
Apparently they do exist though, because when he went home that evening Shah had a look on the China-based site AliExpress and managed to order around 20 pairs of the headphones for £2 each, which he then listed on eBay and Gumtree.
He put the price up to £9.99 and sold all of the pairs within 24 hours, making a hefty profit on his original investment.
Recognising he'd stumbled upon a moneymaking opportunity, Shah began to pick up items from charity shops and cheap retailers like Poundland and Argos.
He listed them online at a higher price than he'd paid, and waited for the money roll in.
Shah admitted that people might wonder why his customers don't just go to Poundland or such shops themselves, but he told Fabulous: ''If somebody is living in a countryside, they don't have Poundland close to them. So people buy those items online."
Shah has since gone on to set up a business with a team that made £500k last year, and he's also launched a YouTube channel to allow fans to follow his success online.
"The rule of business is if you're not willing to take a risk you will always be working for someone who is willing to take a risk," Shah said when speaking about his venture.
He admitted the idea behind his business is 'not that difficult', though he advised anyone looking to get into it themselves to be aware of regulations, such as tax returns, and the cost of shipping and packaging.
The businessman recommended hiking the price of items up by about five times, claiming this isn't any different to what retailers do in the first place.
''Even the items in Poundland - most of the time [Poundland] will buy them for less than 15p," he said.
Even if you only end up making 10p, Shah pointed out that's 10p you didn't have yesterday.
The question is, how many 10ps can you make?
Emily Brown