What Makes a Good Wholesaler?

[jennyyu]

Dropship wholesale distributors can make or break your reselling business. This is especially true if you are running a tight ship, a one-man online operation selling your wares on Ebay, Yahoo Auctions, or simply via your online store. You would need reliable dropship wholesale distributors as your business partners in order for your business to grow by leaps and bounds. This is even more vital for your business growth if you are selling products in a competitive market. Let us look at some secrets to assess if you should do business with the dropship wholesale distributor.

Assuming you have conducted a search for your potential suppliers either from the search engines or local newspaper ads and now have a list on hand. The next task is to evaluate each of these dropship wholesale distributors according to some criteria.

Dropship Wholesale Distributors Criteria 1 – Established and Reputable
It is important to work with dropship wholesale distributors with a good reputation. Honesty and reliability are two key business principles to adhere to in this wholesale business. If you are sourcing from overseas, you may not have the luxury to converse face-to-face with your suppliers. The only handles you have are their track record. You may check out their business practices at Better Business Bureau if they are located in US. If not, find out which are the national or government agencies that govern business registrations and licensing. Drop a note to find out if there have been complaints lodged against them. Of course, there are other avenues to find out more such as work-at-home or auction forums. These are great places to educate oneself on the reseller business and be alerted to scams.

Dropship Wholesale Distributors Criteria 2 – Overseas Dropshipping
Depending on your target customer base, whether it is local or worldwide, your needs can be different. It is crucial to clarify this with the dropship wholesale distributors. If your market is in US and your dropshipper operates there, you would not have any problem. However, you may encounter shipping difficulties if your dropshipper cannot make deliveries to your buyer destinations. Find out where the dropshipper ships to and establish where your market is. But one point to note: if you intend to expand your business and make more sales, it works well to find wholesale distributors who dropship internationally.

Dropship Wholesale Distributors Criteria 3 – Pricing
Never pay too much or too little. If the wholesale distributor charges an exorbitant rate, avoid it. There are many dropship wholesale distributors who are willing to settle for lesser. While this is true, you also must not fall for the cheapest deals either without careful consideration. There must be a reason for the depressed prices. Ask the dropship wholesale distributor and make sure you are satisfied with their answers. Sometimes, the poor product quality could be the reason. Expect a reasonable discount of at least 15% off the retail price when you deal with the dropship wholesale distributors.

Dropship Wholesale Distributors Criteria 4 – Credit and Payment Conditions
Every business owner needs to sort this out with their suppliers. It is no different for you as a reseller. Remember to ask several key questions like: Do you have to pay them upfront per sale? Accumulate and pay monthly or quarterly? What are the modes of payment such as whether they accept paypal or credit cards? Are they offering a 30-day or 60-day credit term? Once you have built trust and rapport with your dropship wholesale distributors, you can negotiate for longer credit term, etc so that you can save on payment transaction costs which can add up.

Dropship Wholesale Distributors Criteria 5 – Product Quality
Product quality is of utmost importance to your reselling business. If your wholesale distributors play you out by delivering inferior-quality merchandise or worse still, send bootleg products to your customers, the hard-earned reputation you have painstakingly built over the years goes down the drain. Never allow this to happen to you. If you are dealing in bulk which you should, request for a free sample. Think long-term and it makes sense to at least have a feel of the product before you sell it to anyone, especially if the item commands a higher profit margin such as MP3 players. You may even consider ordering one for yourself just to test it out.

[dfveteran]

Dropship wholesale distributors can make or break your reselling business. This is especially true if you are running a tight ship, a one-man online operation selling your wares on Ebay, Yahoo Auctions, or simply via your online store. You would need reliable dropship wholesale distributors as your business partners in order for your business to grow by leaps and bounds. This is even more vital for your business growth if you are selling products in a competitive market. Let us look at some secrets to assess if you should do business with the dropship wholesale distributor.

Assuming you have conducted a search for your potential suppliers either from the search engines or local newspaper ads and now have a list on hand. The next task is to evaluate each of these dropship wholesale distributors according to some criteria.

Dropship Wholesale Distributors Criteria 1 – Established and Reputable
It is important to work with dropship wholesale distributors with a good reputation. Honesty and reliability are two key business principles to adhere to in this wholesale business. If you are sourcing from overseas, you may not have the luxury to converse face-to-face with your suppliers. The only handles you have are their track record. You may check out their business practices at Better Business Bureau if they are located in US. If not, find out which are the national or government agencies that govern business registrations and licensing. Drop a note to find out if there have been complaints lodged against them. Of course, there are other avenues to find out more such as work-at-home or auction forums. These are great places to educate oneself on the reseller business and be alerted to scams.

Dropship Wholesale Distributors Criteria 2 – Overseas Dropshipping
Depending on your target customer base, whether it is local or worldwide, your needs can be different. It is crucial to clarify this with the dropship wholesale distributors. If your market is in US and your dropshipper operates there, you would not have any problem. However, you may encounter shipping difficulties if your dropshipper cannot make deliveries to your buyer destinations. Find out where the dropshipper ships to and establish where your market is. But one point to note: if you intend to expand your business and make more sales, it works well to find wholesale distributors who dropship internationally.

Dropship Wholesale Distributors Criteria 3 – Pricing
Never pay too much or too little. If the wholesale distributor charges an exorbitant rate, avoid it. There are many dropship wholesale distributors who are willing to settle for lesser. While this is true, you also must not fall for the cheapest deals either without careful consideration. There must be a reason for the depressed prices. Ask the dropship wholesale distributor and make sure you are satisfied with their answers. Sometimes, the poor product quality could be the reason. Expect a reasonable discount of at least 15% off the retail price when you deal with the dropship wholesale distributors.

Dropship Wholesale Distributors Criteria 4 – Credit and Payment Conditions
Every business owner needs to sort this out with their suppliers. It is no different for you as a reseller. Remember to ask several key questions like: Do you have to pay them upfront per sale? Accumulate and pay monthly or quarterly? What are the modes of payment such as whether they accept paypal or credit cards? Are they offering a 30-day or 60-day credit term? Once you have built trust and rapport with your dropship wholesale distributors, you can negotiate for longer credit term, etc so that you can save on payment transaction costs which can add up.

Dropship Wholesale Distributors Criteria 5 – Product Quality
Product quality is of utmost importance to your reselling business. If your wholesale distributors play you out by delivering inferior-quality merchandise or worse still, send bootleg products to your customers, the hard-earned reputation you have painstakingly built over the years goes down the drain. Never allow this to happen to you. If you are dealing in bulk which you should, request for a free sample. Think long-term and it makes sense to at least have a feel of the product before you sell it to anyone, especially if the item commands a higher profit margin such as MP3 players. You may even consider ordering one for yourself just to test it out.

Why do you keep spreading bogus drop ship info? This information makes no sense and is all jibberish.

*You dont find a real wholesale drop shipper in a search engine or local paper ads!

*Using what you say to find wholesalers in your other post, we won't find anyone that has a legal license to buy or sell nationaly!

*You shouldnt have to clarify anything with the drop shipper. They should know their job and its business as usual to a business that has been around.

*Then you go on to talk about drop shippers who drop ship from other countries. Did you ever hear of customs? Some packages would take up to a month or two, for the customer to recieve their item. Your ebay feeback just went from great to terrible. Of couse your going to encounter shipping dificulties,lol. From my ten years of drop ship experience,this tip will be sure to ruin any home based business.

*If you are only getting 15% off retail, you are not buying from a real wholesale distributor. Real wholesale distrbutors will give you " on the average45%-150%" off retail.

*you should not have to pay any monthly or quarterly fees.

*If we buy from withing our own country we don't have to worry about bootleggers or fake merchandise....

Dont get me wrong,I used to buy overseas, its a great opurtunity to make good money.IF YOU ARE BUYING BULK QUANTITIES OF SOMETHING....

But drop shipping overseas is not a good idea at all. You might as well flush your business out the window.

Please jennyu stop passing bad drop ship information around. We are trying to help members be successful here, not fail.

You have a lot to learn, please read my blog or something.

[teabenny]

I don't believe it's a bad idea to clarify information with a supplier. It's nice to believe that your supplier automatically knows exactly what he's doing, but remember, when you ass-u-me...

[innermountain]

cool - thanks for the information

[orange655321]

"*If you are only getting 15% off retail, you are not buying from a real wholesale distributor. Real wholesale distrbutors will give you " on the average45%-150%" off retail."
-----However..do make sure YOU define retail and not the site that you see the product. If a middle man can markup the wholesale price they charge they can very easily increase the retail and/or MSRP values as well so you think you are getting a good discount. You might know if the retail price seems strange, but you can check a few of the products and prices at shopzilla, google bease, or some other shope and compare sites to get a better feel for if they are providing a real retail value.

*you should not have to pay any monthly or quarterly fees.
---I have seen some suppliers try to charge a fee to create the account....they do this to keep the number of applicants from creating an account and then just buying 2 or 3 products for their own use at a wholesale price or who are not serious about selling products. However, it is more common for a supplier to just have a deposit rather then an account fee. If you see a real program like DBL (now part of Tech Data) charge an account fee....let them know you are serious about selling and see if they can wave the fee or change it to a deposit on your first order. However....regardless...you should NEVER join a program that charges you a monthly fee or quarterly fee to see and sell their products. I use to say NO true program has an upfront fee, but a few smaller programs, and for some reason DBL do have some account types like online resellers where they may list a deposit or upfront account fee.

---also...i agree i dont think the newspaper add approach is a real one that will work. You would be much better contacting the manufacturer and asking for approved distributor programs for their products.

[dfveteran]

Very true orange. You make some good points I am happy to see another YE member that knows about drop shipping and wholesalers.

[carrera87]

We'll i would say service if your service isn't good customers won't come back