orange655321
Senior Member

I can help with a few points. First, you are off to the right start...the most import thing for you to do well will be to find a real wholesale supplier. Not a middle man service or a retailer who simply says they are a wholesale business. It takes more then saying "wholesale" in your URL to be a true distributor. If you use any of the suppliers in our network you will be fine. There are also other good sources like WWB.

For marketplaces, this is a great option to get early sales. You have many options...Google Base, PriceGrabber, Shopzilla, Amazon, etc. Most users seem to like the Amazon Seller Central format...but to sell here you need to have a supplier that provides ASINs or UPC's with the product data. However, some users prefer Nextag and Jellyfish....there is no right way...people sell on each of these every day. I would say to start with Seller Central, but do branch out and at least try loading a few products to some of the other marketplaces to see how some sale items perform.

Your product categories will sell....in some ways if you like the products you can better sell them. You can add to your descriptions, create new content for your site, cross sell better, and recommend products or respond to questions from your clients. Electronics for example sell in high volume (so selling is not the issue) but they sell with lower margin while other product types like fragrances might sell in lower volume online but with higher margin.

The prices on a market place will be lower then selling from your own site....but they have traffic and clients so think of it as part of your marketing budget. You will also sell them more quickly. Dont be afraid to have lower prices then you might on your own site...then try to follow up with your clients after the sale with details on your main site for repeat business.

The other advice I would give is stay away from MAP items when you are getting started if you are trying to sell on a market place. If you have to pay to list an item, like you do on eBay then you only want to list items you can easily sell. The issue with MAP items (ipods, game systems, some GPS items,etc) is there is no room to lower your price because of MAP. Without an ability to compete on price even by a few cents it will be harder to sell. You can still list some of these items...but only if you are selling lots of the accessories and related products so you can make up the margin. I say this because some people just look for a few big name items to sell like the game systems....then they wonder why they cannot move the items when paying to list them on ebay, Amazon, etc.

also, I apologize as I had meant for this to be a private message.

Hello, I thought I would send you a quick PM, I hope you respond, as I have noticed you have not been on since 5-26. just looking for some quick advice.

Anyways, i have been interested in opening an online dropship site. I am in the process of registering my business. After I spent a significant amount of time researching actual wholesale dropshippers, I stumbled upon your link for inventorysource.com and they seem to be exactly what I am looking for. I believe i will start at some sort of established store front (amazon, ebay etc) do you have any advice on what would be optimal? I have a feeling selling on ebay could be difficult unless I find a niche. Also, do you have any advice on what specific products I should sell? I am aware of how to research trends on ebay, its just that i am worried that if I try to sell what i want to (either electrinics or paintball) I wont make sales as ebay is saturated with these products sold by large established retellers.

Any guidance or advice you could give would be appreciated. Thanks