Also, did you find it worth it in the beginning, or do you prefer sourcing everything yourself for as long as possible?
Would love to hear your experiences and tips! Thanks!
Product research is time consuming but it’s good if you know also the process. If you want to add used books in your inventory I might help.
Personally, I think product research is one of the most important skills to master in online arbitrage. A VA can save you time, but they won’t necessarily find better opportunities than you. I’d only outsource once sourcing becomes the main bottleneck preventing you from scaling.
If you don’t have experience with hire of a product researcher… … I have 3 years of launching experience.
I would recommend doing product research yourself until you’re consistently profitable and know exactly what makes a product worth sourcing. Once you have a proven system, hiring a VA makes much more sense because you’ll know how to train them and evaluate their leads.
I think it depends more on your profit margins than your sales volume. If hiring a VA allows you to source enough additional profitable products to comfortably cover their wages, it’s probably worth considering. Otherwise, I’d keep sourcing independently for now.
You don’t necessarily need to hire someone full-time straight away. I’d suggest starting with a part-time VA for a few hours per week and seeing how many genuinely profitable leads they find. It’s a good way to test whether outsourcing is worthwhile without committing to a large monthly expense.