What is the best way to go about procuring ceramic cups in Asia? (By best I mean reliability and scalability.)

Depending on the specs of your boxes, there are many different great options out there for custom printed boxes, at reasonable prices. From my experience working with online retailers, here's some of the best that I've come across: https://packlane.com/ https://pakible.com/ https://www.boxup.com/ https://packhelp.com/ https://www.companybox.com/ http://brandincolor.com/ Some specialty suppliers: https://www.ecoenclose.com/ - eco-friendly http://www.instabox.com/ - Canada http://www.glbc.com/ - Canada + US https://www.packqueen.com.au/ - Australia Hope that helps and gives you some options to consider! Custom packaging is an important part in building a great brand, so it's smart to be looking into this. If you need any advice around creating an eCommerce brand and driving online retail sales, schedule a call with me and we can dig into it!

http://makersrow.com - this is probably your best bet. I wouldn't use a website though. I'd talk to entrepreneurs and creators of high tech textiles in the USA. Look specifically at http://titintech.com and Klymit jacket. Reach out to those founders and learn as much as possible. Both of them are really nice guys and might be better equipped to share horror stories as well. Also be sure to look at http://reddit.com/r/textiles

I am the founder of a cosmetic company that bootstrapped from nothing to a 7 figure business. It sounds like you are really at the beginning stages of business and there are a lot of opportunities for you. You've got a lot of work ahead of you and you need to build some infrastructure. Your brand is going to be one of the most important things to establish and you won't be able to sell to distributors, salons, or consumers without a clear message of what your company is about. When it comes to distribution of your product, you can either work with a distributor, sell directly to resellers, or sell directly to consumers. They all have their advantages and disadvantages. You'll have the most margin with direct to consumers - but you need skills on ecommerce. When you sell through a distributor you lose tons of control, but you can expand your reach quicker. You also have the slimmest margins; but you don't need to invest as much into sales. Selling direct to salons is a time consuming process; but you have more control of how your product is displayed, and the perception the consumer has of your products. So much of cosmetics is where your product is currently sold. If it's sold in mass market retail, no salon will want to carry it. But the direct answer of your question is you simply need to sell your product to anyone who's willing to buy it. Pick up the phone, hustle, and win over those customers.

Hello! I am a former automobile dealer, and I had an auto repair shop, body shop, and licensed vehicle inspection station in central Missouri. I am very familiar with this industry. I entered this market at the wrong time, grew quickly, and hit the Great Recession at the wrong time. My goal was similar to yours, to wholesale vehicles, but also to export classic cars to the middle East. Canada is a great source for people here, because the prices are in fact lower for US buyers. I am still somewhat involved in the automotive niche, and I even recently purchased a replacement engine on a Scion from Canada because it was about one third of the price that I would have paid anywhere close. One thing you mentioned that stuck out in my mind is focusing on SUVs and trucks. When you specialize, you create your biggest potential. If you can create a name for yourself for supplying a particular size of truck, say a 1/4 ton pickup with an extended cab, you might be able to connect with volume buyers who are looking for low cost alternatives to buying new. This could be municipalities with tight budgets, small transport companies, service industry companies, etc. Once you find a hot niche, word could spread fast, and if you've mastered the supply side, you will be able to move vehicles super fast. And if you have the capability of doing some mechanical upgrades on the vehicles before you sell them, you'll make a greater return on your investment. One example of a hot niche is Jeep Cherokees in Colorado. Cherokees sell for 20% to 30% higher in Colorado than what they go for in the Midwest. I know of a person who did nothing but purchase Cherokees and fix them up for selling in Colorado. He had a very solid business. The advantage to focusing down on a very tight selection of vehicle models is knowing what to expect. You'll know what parts are likely to be worn out at a particular mileage, where these vehicles tend to rust first, what mechanical issues are common, or electrical problems that you can run into. When you are wholesaling and buying anything and everything, you'll heighten your chances of getting burned. I've been there myself, and learned some hard lessons. At the end of my run in the business, I wish I could have hit the rewind button and only scoped out a narrow variety of vehicles that I had the most knowledge on. I plan on re-entering the business soon. I've got a particular car in mind, the 1995 Ford Mustang. I rebuilt one of these, and I know all of the gory details for this car. Right now, they are a dime a dozen, and you can find them everywhere. My plan is to restore them and sell them, because this body style and the Fox body are the next ones which will become "nostalgic". Drill down and find out which pickup truck is your best prospect. Factor in common problems, cost of repair, and demand out on the market. Then stick with that model within a certain range of years, and make a name for yourself in that niche. You are guaranteed to have better success if you take that approach!

If you have your CAD design done, you can get it printed in plastic first using inexpensive printers at 3DHubs for example. Do tweaks to the design and reprint. This can't cost more than $5 or so per print. Once you're happy you can then send your design to shapeways or i.materialise to be printed in metal. These services will likely charge a fee $100 for a metal print.