I was selling a few items on eBay and itching to get my hands on a steady stream of product to sell, dropship suppliers would have been a great option
By dealing directly with the manufacturers you are cutting out the middle man and putting a few more dollars in your pocket. Granted, you may be adding a bit of work for yourself, but you can decide over the next few minutes which option is best for you. Starting an account with a manufacturer isn’t the easiest thing in the world, but if you can get signed up, do it. If not, we’ll talk about your other options in a bit.
Through the course of my product research, I quickly learned the requirements for dealing direct with manufacturers. Some manufacturers have lax rules about who they will accept as distributors (I learned to stay away from those guys as you’ll soon see), but most require that you have a website up and running, a retail outlet, and/or references from other manufacturers or wholesalers in order to set up an account. After a long search for a supply source, the strict requirements really began to agitate me. I was a new retailer and nobody was willing to work with me because I did not meet any of the requirements that I just mentioned.
Dropship Suppliers Can Help You Find the Right Product at the Right Price at the Right Time
need them. If you do not offer the right product at the right time and at the right price, you will never make a sale. Your distributor is the key to your success in these three areas. Not only do distributors need to have the products in stock and available to you when you are in the most critical of inventory situations, but they have to be offering you prices that allow you to run a profitable business. The distributors also need to act as advisors that make sure that you are getting product that is going to sell and not just make a nice decoration for your storage shelves!I tried the popular online distribution sources and came up empty. I am not saying that these distributors are not good sources (in fact, I’ll recommend the best of these distributors later), but they did not offer me products in my new niche. After days of searching and dozens of phone calls, I stumbled upon a retailer that had their own line of products and offered wholesale accounts. In a matter of hours, my account with this company was up and running.
Warning, if something seems too good to be true, you’re probably right! Just Another Reason to Stick with Tried and True Dropship Suppliers.
I quickly learned that buying from a retail competitor on a wholesale account, was not much different than buying the best priced auction items on eBay and trying to resell the products on eBay! Little did I realize that the retail company was not offering me much of a discount since they also were a retailer and were merely acting as a middle man (while slapping their name on the items) to boost their sales.
I was not getting the best price and was not able to compete on eBay using this supplier. I realized this within a week and began contacting more manufacturers and other distributors. So, I blew a few hundred dollars and now you can reap the benefits and learn a little lesson from my mistake.
The takeaway here is to be careful of who you are dealing with. This is why I recommend sticking with the top manufacturers and dropship suppliers within your industry. You can normally hunt down some referrals and find out quickly about the reputation of these guys. Dealing with other retailers (for a source of product) or small, unknown manufacturers and not reputable eBay dropship suppliers, can just get you into a situation that will come back to bite you in the future. So find a good drop ship suppliers list or drop ship suppliers directory like the one you can find at Worldwide Brands and it can be smooth sailing for you!
