Selling hardware as part-time: fulfillment and shipping?

[msr]

Hey guys,

I would like to be able to sell some hardware products I will eventually design and to do that on a "part-time" basis.
For software people, this is much easier since they have all the tools to develop, sell and ship their products online. You just have to put a "download" link on the web along with a Paypal button and the buyer instantly get what he pays for.

Hardware products need fulfillment and shipping and that also takes money and lots of time. It gets worse with greater quantities and free time is scarce when doing things part-time.
So, do you know any companies that offer this kind of service? Probably in China? It would be nice to don't have to worry about the logistics of selling hardware and to keep focus only on the development.

After a quick search I came up with http://www.shipwire.com/. Have anyone have ever used it?

[EEVblog]

FYI, I've done an extensive blog post on selling your own hardware:
http://www.eevblog.com/2014/05/28/the-economics-of-selling-your-hardware-project/

[Fungus]

FYI, I've done an extensive blog post on selling your own hardware:
http://www.eevblog.com/2014/05/28/the-economics-of-selling-your-hardware-project/

How do you get the uCurrent manufactured?

[eas]

Draw further inspiration from the software world, and treat your whole business as a prototype that you are iterating on as fast as you can.

For example, before you have a pcb, a design, or even a finished spec, start finding where your expected customers congregate and feel them out about specifications and price point. Each time you get feedback, including that no one even responds, factor that in to what/where/how you represent the project the next time.

If you don't get any or much response, then that is the first problem you need to fix. Are you looking in the right places? Are you looking for the right people? Are you focusing on the right details? Is your price-point too high?  Perhaps your price is too low to be taken seriously?

As you work out product/market fit, you can fill idle time by starting to figure out how you'll get the first, say, dozen, made and into the hands of people for field testing.

As you are working through things, worry less about getting the lowest unit cost possible, and more about getting things done quickly and relatively reliably. If you can sell your first small production run at break even, then you'll have a really good perspective on where to go next. Was it pretty easy to sell out, do you think you can sell lots more?  Or, did it take a lot of time and effort for the last 5 to sell? If it is the latter, then your most pressing problem isn't the cost or effort of production and distribution.

If you do have a good sign of healthy demand, you can start iteratively optimizing. The decisions should be easier too, because you'll have pretty good numbers to work with for estimating ROI on various improvements you might make. If you are confidant can sell 100 units in the next month, maybe your best ROI is just to negotiate with whoever made your last, smaller batch. If you find that pulling things off the shelf putting them in a box, slapping a mailing label on them, and dropping them of at the post office on your way to work the next morning is no longer tenable, you can figure out what it would be worth paying Amazon or someone else to do individual fulfillment for you.

[EEVblog]

How do you get the uCurrent manufactured?

An assembler up the NSW north coast.

Old video:

[msr]

So many great responses! Thank you guys.

Hope I get back to you as soon as possible with real stuff to sell
By the way, this is the thing: http://qkthings.com/
I've been working on this since I finished my MSc thesis (almost 3 years now). It's amazingly tough to keep developing this along with a full time job and trying to keep a healthy lifestyle at the same time, but despite some natural mistakes I've been learning a LOT with it and I hope to unveil what this is all about in the beginning of the next year.