[julius]

In this case you need to buy inventory first. Buying from China means shipping takes weeks. And you need to get some samples shipped first, to choose your manufacturer.

Your customers will not want to wait for their phone case for 8 weeks. Shipping phone cases one-by-one from China is obviously out of the question as well.

You also need to buy the Justin Bieber rights, before taking orders.

Also do not forget to setup with a fulfillment partner. You do not want to send out 1000 packages yourself.

Having $9 per case to work with is not too bad. Depending on the costs of the shipping (china+fulfillment) and licence, the numbers might still work out.

But I am not too sure on the advertisement side of things. A customer might be too expensive.

[Symbiote]

On eBay, for $1.49 including delivery from Hong Kong, one Justin Bieber phone case [1]. There's an even cheaper one for $1.39, but Bieber looks younger, so I guess that's old stock.

I buy stuff this way, typically when I don't need it urgently. I've bought phone cases, memory cards, small electronics — they have to be under €10, so they don't incur a customs charge. [3] Delivery often takes a month (by ship), but sometimes I'm lucky and it's just a few days, presumably there was space on a plane.

The competition is the 95% of sellers based in the US, who are selling the same cases for $10 with much faster delivery. [2]

The idea seems to rely on people not shopping around, since

[1] http://www.ebay.com/itm/Justin-Bieber-Cute-Hard-Phone-Cover-...

[2] http://www.ebay.com/bhp/justin-bieber-phone-case

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low-value_consignment_relief

[schmrz]

While it may not be "right", you don't need an inventory, not even a payment system. You will not be charging the potential customers. The point is that you test the market, just to see if anyone would be interested in buying. Once they get to the checkout, simply say that it will be "available soon" and optionally ask for email so you can actually sell to them later.

For anything you want to build and sell, you need to make sure that you (a) have a market, (b) can reach the market (marketing).

Again, it may not be completely right, as you may feel (as I do) that you are misleading customers a bit.

[AznHisoka]

Your last paragraph is where this all falls apart (assuming there is demand, a huge assumption of course). Paying $500 for 1000 clicks which results in 50 sales (given an optimistic 5% conversion) essentially just results in break even.