Make Money 4.0: Hunting for "lossy" goods, 9X livestreams to close half a billion dong deal

In 2013, when he was still a student, Le Hai Vu (33 years old) simply wanted to exchange an old phone for a newer model. He did not expect that the transaction would bring in a small profit.

From there, he realized the potential in buying and reselling technology products, opening up an unexpected way to make money.

Technology products that seem outdated can help him accumulate capital and gradually find "loopholes" in the distribution system, opening up a business path.

Finding opportunities from market "gaps"

Le Hai Vu is a familiar name in the technology enthusiast community with the nickname "Lo Vu".

Initially, Vu mainly searched for sources of goods based on technology forums and online buying and selling groups to exchange products.

Kiếm tiền 4.0: Săn hàng lỗ, 9X livestream chốt đơn nửa tỷ đồng - 1 — Le Hai Vu shared that he started his career in the technology business by buying and selling used phones.

With a small capital of only a few million dong, Vu buys and sells small technology items, mainly hand-to-hand.

For 6 years, Vu struggled in the industry, but in 2019, when he saw a decrease in profit margins and saturated customer demand, he decided to change direction.

"During the most prosperous period of the industry, I did not participate. Only when it declined did I clearly see the difficulties. When an industry declines, there are almost no more opportunities to expand," Vu shared.

From small domestic transactions, he began to look for opportunities in China, the world's largest technology manufacturing market.

Thanks to a Chinese friend who studied abroad in Hanoi , he had the opportunity to approach large factories and businesses to find direct sources of goods.

"I searched on international websites and major e-commerce platforms. But most importantly, I had to check the product to see if there was any opportunity to take advantage of it," he said.

Kiếm tiền 4.0: Săn hàng lỗ, 9X livestream chốt đơn nửa tỷ đồng - 2 — Vu's strategy is to hunt for technology items that are heavily discounted for many reasons, typically "clearing out the warehouse".

Vu realized that products with little competition in the US or European markets would be pushed to Asian countries at much lower prices.

If you know how to exploit it, this is a "gold mine," Vu explained.

"The same product, sold in the US for $100, but in Vietnam it can be only half, or even a third. There are items that are sold for less than the production cost because they have brought in profits in previous sales," Vu explained.

Seeing the opportunity, Hai Vu decided to import liquidated products from large enterprises, taking advantage of the low prices to redistribute.

This is also the origin of the name "King of Losses".

"We import products that businesses accept to sell at a loss and resell them to consumers. We often jokingly say that we make a profit for others," he said.

Vu built an R&D team specializing in market research, using tools to analyze trends from abroad.

Kiếm tiền 4.0: Săn hàng lỗ, 9X livestream chốt đơn nửa tỷ đồng - 3 — "There are many steps, but the most important is still checking product quality," Vu shared.

This group is responsible for importing sample products, checking quality, features, and market pricing before deciding to import in large quantities.

"There are many steps, but the most important is still checking the product quality. After researching the market, we have to evaluate whether customers will buy or not, then decide to import in large quantities," he revealed.

Boost from TikTok

Before TikTok exploded, Vu tried selling through Facebook, websites, and running ads.

However, things only really changed when he started experimenting with TikTok in 2019.

At first, everything was vague for Vu. "At that time, there were two brothers sitting around filming a few clips, editing them until they got bored, then deleting them. No one watched them," this 9X technology enthusiast shared.

Kiếm tiền 4.0: Săn hàng lỗ, 9X livestream chốt đơn nửa tỷ đồng - 4 — Vu said he started TikTok when everything was still quite vague.

But after more than 30 videos , a clip reviewing a backup battery suddenly went viral (had a lot of interaction), attracting 300,000-400,000 views in just one day.

The night the video went viral, Vu sat down and wrote down his takeaways.

"At that time, I realized: ah, the product must be unique, the content must be concise, the way of speaking must be attractive to become a trend," Vu shared.

Thanks to that, the following videos continuously achieved good results, the number of followers of "King of Losses" increased to tens of thousands of people after a few months.

Kiếm tiền 4.0: Săn hàng lỗ, 9X livestream chốt đơn nửa tỷ đồng - 5 — A livestream sales session of Vu.

In 2021, when TikTok was a playground for dancing trends, Vu began laying the foundations for his future livestream business.

"At that time, livestream sales did not exist yet, TikTok Shop had not been born yet. I thought I would just create content first, attract people's attention, then if I wanted to sell, I would attach a link to another platform," Vu recalled.

Everything changed in June 2022, when TikTok Shop officially launched. A new era of e-commerce exploded.

Without hesitation, Vu immediately set up the device to livestream. But not to sell anything, but just to… test the features.

"The first livestream, I did it for fun, without any plan. I just saw a feature so I tested it," he said.

Kiếm tiền 4.0: Săn hàng lỗ, 9X livestream chốt đơn nửa tỷ đồng - 6 — The young man quickly realized the "huge" potential of TikTok Shop.

No script, no professional setup, everything happened spontaneously. But surprisingly, after a few live sessions, he sold 10-20 million VND worth of goods each day thanks to customers "closing orders".

In the beginning, it was just Vu alone.

The guy shared: "There was almost no one to support, because at that time livestream was too new, there was no setup team. There was a mega live session, I only asked 1-2 close friends to help, but I didn't prepare much."

But it was that dedication that helped him realize the "huge" potential of TikTok Shop. After 2 months of testing, the number of views jumped from a few dozen to 500, then 1,000.

Kiếm tiền 4.0: Săn hàng lỗ, 9X livestream chốt đơn nửa tỷ đồng - 7

Kiếm tiền 4.0: Săn hàng lỗ, 9X livestream chốt đơn nửa tỷ đồng - 8

Vu admitted that at first, he just did it on instinct, without any proper strategy.

"I don't have any professional training or knowledge for livestreaming. I just live based on my feelings and live whenever it's convenient," Vu recounted.

He thought about expanding his staff many times, but recruiting people was a challenge.

"Because the livestream industry was so new at that time, it was difficult to find experienced staff. I had to find people and jump into live streaming at the same time, which took a lot of time," Vu recalled.

Expanding livestreaming, need to solve the problem of "uniqueness"

Entering 2024, when he realized he couldn't do it all forever, he decided to build his own livestream team.

But for Vu, this is a difficult problem.

"The difficulty lies in the training story, because livestreaming is not just turning on the machine and talking. It is a combo of skills: selling, understanding the product, speaking well and understanding the platform's policies. Teaching those things takes a lot of time," Vu shared.

More importantly, customers not only buy because of the product, but also because of the "quality" of the livestreamer.

Kiếm tiền 4.0: Săn hàng lỗ, 9X livestream chốt đơn nửa tỷ đồng - 9

Kiếm tiền 4.0: Săn hàng lỗ, 9X livestream chốt đơn nửa tỷ đồng - 10

"This industry has a special feature: if they are good at livestreaming, they will no longer work for my business, but will "jump out". I have to come up with a reasonable profit sharing mechanism, so that both sides see fair-play, then they will stay," Vu revealed.

With a tight content strategy, optimized advertising, combined with mini games and great deals, Vu not only maintains the popularity of the brand, but also continues to expand its scale.

To date, this guy’s livestream platform is among the top sellers in the electronics industry, especially for accessories. According to Vu, mega live sessions bring in huge sales.