Requesting A Little Dropship/whole sale Info

Can anyone give me a little advice on selling items using a Dropship/wholesale business? I have sold items on eBay but I haven’t tried buying items in bulk or from a dropship company. Can anyone point me in the right direction or to an informative site?

 

If you are looking for suppliers, http://www.worldwidebrands.com has one of the best lists out there.

 

Good resource, thanks for share it Jdog

 

Do ya'll have a subscription to worldwidebrands? I am considering purchasing one but it seems like it provides little competitive advantage if everyone is using it

 

This is true to a point, but there are hundreds of suppliers on there each carrying hundreds of products. I would think that it would be hard to use a lot of them for ebay, but I know it can be done. It is all about the niche product. I am using them to set up a retail website, so that I don't have to play the ebay game.

 

Thanks Jdog, I looked into worldwidebrands today, just wasn’t sure about taking the plunge.

 

Do the suppliers you find in worldwidebrands generally provide free catalogs?

 

They are all different. Most of them have a site that you can see their stuff, and if you sign up with them then you can log in and see their prices. I've never really looked for printed catalogs if that is what you are looking for.

 

Be very careful when dealing with new companies offering unbelievable deals to you when browsing through Online Import/export directories.

It is best to look for distributors locally to your area first, then move out from there, you will save on shipping costs by doing that, plus you get a local contact.

ALWAYS ask for references from the company you want to deal with, make sure those references include telephone numbers and st addresses. Don't settle for just one reference. and if they dont provide you with references move on, its not worth the trouble you will get later on.

There are tonz of good sites and books that deal with import/export via the net.

A good place to start your research is

http://resources.alibaba.com/

Good Luck!

 

Good advice, amokk20us. You can also contact wholesale vendors in your market and sometimes they may be willing to dropship products for you. If you deep deep, it's usually possible to find someone willing to do that for you. A lot depends on the type of products you sell, but in my experience, it's hard to find unique products to sell if you only deal with the large dropship companies.

Good Luck!

 

Thank You Cladiadot,

I was lucky to find an emerging company that imports OEM digital cameras and mp3 players to dropship for me. This is where I make most of my cash from. As an incentive to browse our store, we also offer Branded products through local suppliers, but the margins are basicly zero....

It started off as an web design gig, where I designed and managed their webpage, this gave me a chance to get to know the compnay and management. Later on when I felt the urge to dive into e-commerce, I found their products were acutally excellent quality goods.

The hard thing when trying to retail OEm products is bascily a lack of credibitlty in the product, but in sayging that. If you manage your marketing and research well, the profit margin on OEM products are huge and they quickly become your greatest assests.

Another thing to note from my own experience in dropshipping, if you are going to sale OEM products, make sure you know the product inside and out before selling it. So which means you will need to account for the product sample purchases in your start-up costs. So yes, you still may need to keep 'some' stock, even for a dropshiping business.

Thank You, hope this helped