February 29, 2008
Dropshipping Wholesaler - What Potential Resellers Must Know
If you run a reselling business on the web, you know that a dropshipping wholesaler you work with is largely responsible for your enterprise's success or failure. Both great benefits and great risks are involved in the business you do with a dropship company. But for many small resell businesses, this is the only opportunity to boost their revenues without much effort and money investment.
The benefits of using a dropshipping wholesaler are plentiful:
1. You don't have to invest in inventory; this saves you a ton of money and additional headache in case the goods are not selling well.
2. You need not pay for the storage of the products. There is absolutely no need to have a holding area for the merchandises.
3. You are not restricted to one type of a product only and are free to switch to other types as often as you want to. This gives you an opportunity to find your niche without much of a hassle.
4. You can offer a wide product mix with many similar or complementing merchandises. For example, if you are selling cell phone batteries, you may consider selling cell phone covers as well.
5. You do not have to hold any surpluses. Since you do not have any inventory at all, you would not incur any losses like the manufacturers who may have to stomach losses whenever products become obsolete or expire.
6. The flow of cash starts with the very first item you sell. In a simplified way, the process looks like this: the buyer pays you, you pay to the dropshipping wholesaler, and the difference between the two prices makes your profit.
7. You are spared of the trouble to pack, handle and ship the items. You save money as well, even though your dropshipping wholesaler charges you for the delivery. But in case you handled the delivery of the product yourself, you would have spent much more, leaving little room for profit.
8. It used to be tougher being a reseller since you need to place huge minimum orders in order to enjoy wholesale prices. In today's market, there are now many dropship suppliers that would offer wholesale prices even without minimum orders.
As usual, all businesses carry a certain level of risks.
1. Since you are not responsible for the delivery, you cannot be able to influence the process. Should there be delays, you are the face who is getting all the blame from the customers.
2. Should you choose to partner with a lousy dropshipping wholesaler, you can expect major hiccups along the way. Late delivery, poor quality goods, and in some cases, fakes are some of the common problems resellers complain about when dealing with shady companies. This can kill your business online since the reputation of your reselling business depends a lot on your customer's feedback about you in the auctions such as eBay.
3. You are normally not informed when a certain product is sold out, so you may continue to offer it in your shop until you get angry inquiries from your customer on the reasons why the purchase hasn't arrived yet.
Choosing a dropshipping wholesaler you may need to make a couple of test purchases to evaluate the quality and overall service, find out what policies the company has, and get a feedback from its former or current partners.
Discover more useful tips on finding a good dropshipping wholesaler from my income blog. Also find out which supplier is offering quality service and great products at huge bargains.

Filed under Ecommerce by Davion Wong










