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Wholesaling and Dropshipping, Two Specialized Fields

William King — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 12:07:10 +0000

Starting an online wholesale business may not be a very easy task. The difficulty lies in the range of unsolicited and unwanted information about wholesale business that clutters the web. Therefore, those who are interested in starting an online wholesale business need to go to a reliable source to gather the preliminary information about how to go about it.

Most of the advice that you will find online will misinform you regarding a lot of things. It will uselessly try to make the whole process difficult. For example, one of the most common misinformation that circulates online is that one needs a tax ID or a re-selling license to start an online wholesale business. There are some companies and individual distributors that do indeed ask for a tax ID to supply the wholesaler with goods to sell. On the other hand there are also companies and distributors who have no such pre requisite. Therefore, having a license or tax ID from the Secretary of State Office is not absolutely essential. You can still conduct your wholesale business without one.

Dropshipping is not very different from any other business that you may want to start. For example, when you want to set up a store in your city, you would do a market research first, find out about your competitors, etc. In case of setting up an online dropshipping business you must do the same. Not only do you have competition in terms of the billions of websites that are engaged in the same activities, but also that the online business as a concept is evolving very fast. You may find that your line of work has become obsolete soon after you have started working on it, if you have not done adequate research.

The following are some of the things you must find out:

whether there is demand for your product
nature of competition you might face
whether your product will be easily sold
an up to date information about the current market scenario for that product

Selling is not very difficult thanks to sites like eBay which also has an auction selling option. The problem arises in delivering and shipping the goods. Many stores lack far behind when it comes to fulfilling mail order deliveries on time. They lose precious time, clients and revenue because they do not have an efficient fulfillment system in place.

Here is where the difference lies between a wholesale business and a dropshipping business. Wholesalers are those who maintain stocks of goods and try to effect sales through advertising and marketing. These online wholesale companies need a fulfillment agency to take over the job of delivering their goods. Since fulfillment of an order is a taxing job all by itself, there are some agencies involved only in this kind of job. These are the dropshipping firms.

The advantages of such firms are that they do not need to worry about how to increase the sales of the products that they will be delivering. They do not have to maintain stocks either, nor worry about marketing. Therefore, these firms are free of such risks.

William King is the director of Wholesale Pages Designer Clothing Wholesalers: http://www.wholesalepages.co.uk/ukwholesalers/Clothing__Designer-117-0.html, Aid and Trade: http://www.aidandtrade.com, Daily Trader: http://www.dailytrader.com and Dubai Property & UAE Property & Dubai Real Estate Portal: http://www.bayut.com . He has 18 years of experience in the marketing and trading industries and has been helping retailers, entrepreneurs and startups with their product sourcing, promotion, marketing and supply chain requirements.

EBay Dropshipping, a low risk and high return venture

William King — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 12:02:42 +0000

You do not have to stock up goods in dropshipping and as a result you can prevent blocking space at your home or office premises.

You do not have to pay for anything unless you have a confirmed order in your hand, this way you can save the cost of investing in something that does not even sell.

In order to advertise the product, you will need to have sale graphics and pictures. But you can save the cost of actual buying a product clicking its pictures and writing a detail about its features. Most of the wholesalers will have pictures of their products on their web site, they will also have a detailed description of their products, so all you have to do is to download it from there and save yourself all the time and energy of doing it yourself.

This is how dropshipping works at eBay. There are a lot of wholesalers who advertise for their goods to be sold. Now you can search a good that has a good margin to provide and is in good demand. Next you have to start advertising the goods at eBay to attract consumers. Once you get the orders from the customer you can send the same to the wholesaler who will pack the goods put your label on it and send it to the consumer.

Through this process you can gain a lot of profit. As you can approximately keep fifty percent of what the consumer pays you and you have to pay around a fifty percent to the wholesaler. But the entire share that you get is not yours to take home as profit; you have to meet certain expenditures of your business. You have to pay eBay charges that are one of the major costs, next you have to pay for advertising of goods. You can advertise your goods and attract people through forums, discussion boards and through your own web site. You also have to send your label to be attached to the goods and that will also cost you apart from the postal charges.

It is true that you can make it big with drop shipping at eBay. But it is absolutely untrue that you can do it at the blink of an eyelid. Like all other businesses you do need to invest time and energy in order to succeed. Here it is important that you do your research well. All depends on the product that you choose. If your product is not in demand or does not give you a good profit margin, then all the effort done to advertise it will go in vain. It is equally important that you employ advertising secrets in order to attract new customers. If you put in consistent effort and do your research well then there is no limit to what you can achieve here.

William King is the director of Australia Wholesalers – Australian Wholesale Dropshippers & Suppliers Directory: http://www.australiawholesalers.com, Canadian Wholesalers and Dropshippers Dropshipping Directory: http://www.wholesale-canada.com and Wholesale Dropshippers & Dropshipping Trade Directory: http://www.aidandtrade.com and French Wholesalers & Wholesale Directory: http://www.francewholesalers.com . He has 18 years of experience in the marketing and trading industries and has been helping retailers, entrepreneurs and startups with their product sourcing, promotion, marketing and supply chain requirements.

Make money online with Dropshipping business

William King — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 12:01:51 +0000

All you have to do with dropshipping is to advertise a product that you do not currently possess and take orders for the same from the public. Once you have enough orders you pass it on to the wholesaler who then dispatches the goods to the customers. Doing this you can easily pocket the difference between the wholesale price and the retail price. It is seriously as simple as it sounds! You can find a lot of opportunity to venture in to this business through the internet; in fact you will be able to find a whole list of suppliers who are ready to supply goods in their country. Due to the simplicity and lack of risk in this business there are loads of people who are currently pursuing it, this leaves little scope for a new comer to find out a product that he can profitably sell. It becomes more difficult if you have to pay international shipping costs on the goods that you choose to sell.

To be able to find a niche for yourself in this game you have to make money by extracting information from the market. The key is to use business to business online marketplace. Here you can find millions of products that are up for sale and trade. Once you decide which product you want to trade in and can find a supplier who is ready to supply the product then you can start your dropshipping business.

Before you start this business there are certain things that you must be aware of. Make sure that your supplier is a person that you can trust. In case your supplier refuses to supply the goods you will find yourself in a very awkward situation. Imagine having taken a lot of orders from the customers and having no goods to supply to them, you will be caught in a web of customer complaints and also refund of the order money. Therefore you should develop great relationship with your supplier so that you know what he has in stock and what the demand is like. Secondly if you are selling your goods online, you may have to offer a price that is slightly lower that the physical market price to lure the customers. Another important thing is that you should be extremely clear as to the course of action that has to be followed in case there is a problem with the goods during its life time. It is best to be clear about these things at the very on set to avoid any unpleasantness later on.

If you are capable of handling all these problems, then get started. All you need to make it big here is research. I am not saying that you can make millions without any effort, but if you put in your best shot and search the products that give you a handsome margin, then you can really make a whole lot of money out here.

William King is the director of Wholesale Pages UK Electrical Good Wholesalers: http://www.wholesalepages.co.uk/ukwholesalers/Electrical_Goods-75-0.html, Australia Wholesalers – Australian Wholesale Dropshippers & Suppliers Directory: http://www.australiawholesalers.com, Canadian Wholesalers and Dropshippers Dropshipping Directory: http://www.wholesale-canada.com and UK Wholesaler: http://www.uk-wholesaler.co.uk . He has 18 years of experience in the marketing and trading industries and has been helping retailers, entrepreneurs and startups with their product sourcing, promotion, marketing and supply chain requirements.

How to build a successful online dropshipping business

William King — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 11:39:53 +0000

Doing Business as a Drop Shipper, Auction Sales, or E-commerce is not as easy as some may make it seem. In fact, less than half actually succeed. However, this does not have to be the end result. There are vital sales techniques and methods that can help your business succeed.

The most vital tool to help your business succeed is to create a mailing list. Adding a mailing list to your site can prove to be the ultimate tool. However, it is not just that simple. You want to be creative. You want to draw the potential client attention. How many times have you visited a website asking you to sign up for their mailing list and browsed right passed it? Most consumers’ main concern is that they will be swamped with spam mail and information that they cannot use. You want to let your potential clients know the benefit of signing up for your mailing list. You may offer special discounts, informative news, free email courses. A true salesman does whatever it takes in order to get the customer. Retaining customers is extremely important to the success of your dropshipping business.

Customers strive for information. Creating your own Newsletter is another valuable tool. It is a way to keep you connected to your visitors. The sky is the limit with a creative Newsletter. For example: If you own a craft store you can create a newsletter suggesting creative craft ideas, craft ideas for the family, holiday craft ideas and much more. You can also offer discounts on your products.

Of course, you have seen affiliate programs out there everywhere that are more successful than others, however, if you plot it correctly and creatively an affiliate program can be a great resource for your business. You can generate sufficient income based on referrals alone. Word of mouth is the most significant instrument for a business. People trust people more than what they may read. As the reputation and fame of your company build so will your cliental base and wealth. This is why it is important not to make promises you can’t keep. Do not advertise larger than your stock base. In other words, do not claim to have more than you can supply. Your clients trust you and whoever may have referred them to your company. You break that trust and you lose not only that customer but also any referrals from that would have been generated by that customer.

Having a well informed and unique website will prove to be just as important as any other tool. Your website plays the middle-man between you and your clients. Your customers need to be informed. Not to mention, the content has to be interesting enough to keep them on your page and pitchy enough to sell the product. Every last one of your web pages should sell. It may be necessary to hire a professional to write the content of your web page(s) if you do not feel comfortable doing so. Though, you may have the potential of attracting customers to your website, if the content doesn’t sell and attract the customers, they will just browse over it and most likely purchase from your competitor.

Marketing of your business also plays an important part in the progress. Market your product and your business. This is as vital as any tool you will use. The reason is simple- without marketing you won’t have any customers. How will your target audience know where to find you, what are the products you offer and information regarding your business? When most companies think of marketing they think of expense, a lot of expense. However, this does not have to be the case. Search engine optimization (SEO) is a set of methods aimed at improving the ranking of a website in search engine listings. Such search engines as Google, can increase the traffic to your website by a great deal. Which brings back the point, that content is everything. There is no purpose of having visitors to your website if most won’t stay and purchase.

Nevertheless, the success of your business depends on you and your efforts to succeed. By following these tips you should have the tools to open the doors to your Dropshipping business and draw the attention that it needs.

William King is the director of Wholesale Pages: http://www.wholesalepages.co.uk , Aid and Trade: http://www.aidandtrade.com , Daily Trader: http://www.dailytrader.com and Pakistan Property Portal http://www.zameen.com/ . He has 18 years of experience in the marketing and trading industries and has been helping retailers, entrepreneurs and startups with their product sourcing, promotion, marketing and supply chain requirements.

What is Dropshipping? Finding Dropshippers, Its Advantages and Pitfalls!

William King — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 11:32:22 +0000

Dropshipping is a type of retailing where the retailer does not keep goods in stock, but instead passes the customer’s order and shipment details to the wholesaler, who then dispatches the goods to the customer directly. The retailer makes their profit on the difference between the wholesale and retail price. Some retailers may still keep “show” items on display in stores, so that customers can inspect an item similar to those that they can purchase. Other retailers may only provide a catalogue or Internet presence.

Drop shipping can occur when a retailer receives a single large order for a product. Rather than route the shipment through the retail store, the retailer will arrange for the goods to be shipped directly to the purchaser.

Let us assume, you purchase an item from a dropshipping site for $20.00. You would sell that item for a price determined by you; let’s use $35.00 plus $4.50 shipping for an example. After you collect the total payment of $39.50 from the customer and their mailing address, you would forward the $20.00 plus $4.50 for shipping to the wholesaler, and keep the $15.00 as profit, never having to touch the product, as the wholesaler ships it out to the customer.

In short, dropshipping is simply selling products for wholesale companies, sending them the address of the person who bought from you, and they ship the product to them. This is an incredible opportunity, most times for the cost of a meal at a restaurant, to start a profitable eBay business.

Many sellers on eBay also drop ship. Naturally a seller will offer an item as new and ship the item directly from the wholesaler to the highest bidder. The seller profits from the difference between the winning bid and the wholesale price, minus any selling fees from eBay.

Finding Dropshippers

Startups and individuals new to the dropshipping world generally face severe difficulty in finding legitimate and authentic dropshipping companies. Several online directories have popped up in recent times on the net which help to make this task easy. Its best online example can be seen by working of the famous online dropshippers directory http://www.aidandtrade.com.

Whilst looking for dropshippers, there is a general misconception that dropshipping companies who charge an initial fee to sign-up and open accounts with them are not considered genuine. Although this might be true in some cases however the reason for charging this fee is that, these companies want to make sure that they are dealing with genuine traders and not individuals merely looking for quick bargains and one off items.

Advantages of Dropshipping

Working with dropship companies has numerous advantages for small companies and individuals looking to earn part time or even full time income. Following are some of its benefits.

- The dropshipper researches for products and provides their lists/catalogues of available items at trade prices – one can sell any of these items by any method they wish.

- The dropshipper acts on the order – Only when the item has been sold and the payment has been received, the dropshipper is asked to fulfil the order.

- The dropshipper packages the orders – No packaging costs are involved at the end of the seller.

- The dropshipper sends the orders out direct to the customer – No delivery costs and efforts are associated with the seller

- The dropshipper is transparent to the customer – As far as the customer is concerned their purchase has come directly from the seller.

- The dropshipper holds all the stock – No warehouse or storage issues at the end of the seller

- All the seller has to do is concentrate on sales and marketing and banking the profits!

Dropshipping Pitfalls

While it is true that the profits can be gigantic, the seller effectively has to rely on the goodwill and professionalism of the dropshipper/wholesaler. Eventually, one should always keep in mind that should the deal go raw (for instance, the dropshipper supplying a faulty product or a downright incorrect one), it will be the seller’s reputation that will take hit. The end buyer cares nothing for whether the seller used a dropshipper or not; all they truly care about is receiving the product that they paid for. For that reason, dealing with unconfirmed dropshippers can be risky.

Additionally, profit margins can be low when working with smaller dropshipping companies. Typically the biggest discounts from manufacturers go to larger volume resellers who further pass their discounts to sole traders and individuals. Using smaller dropshipping companies one might end up paying much more per unit of product than by contacting manufacturers direct. Most manufacturers refuse to deal with individuals, but many will offer low volume quantities at wholesale price. For a fast selling product it could be worthwhile buying small quantities directly from the manufacturers.