Product Sourcing
Posted on August 19, 2007
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Dropship vs. Inventory
Recently we have received a flood of questions about how to go about sourcing products or finding wholsale suppliers.
First of all, If you are new to the hard-goods e-commerce business you need to make a decision Inventory or Dropship. Starting out it’s not much of a decision; do yourself a favor and Dropship before committing your cash and time in inventory.
While it’s true, the margins are slimmer in a dropship situation, what you give up in margin you more than make up in having lower startup costs, and you don’t face the risk of having inventory you cannot move…
A good Dropshipper handles order fulfillment for you and uses your packing slip, so when the package arrives it appears as though the shipment came from “your warehouse” or at the very least as though you have made a special arrangement to ship “factory direct”.
Be sure to do a little research before using any drop shipper. Check against the Better Business database, check their prices against retail prices on the Internet (Don’t be scammed by companies claiming to be dropshipper, but really selling retail), and search the Internet for any forum entries, or past law-suits.
- TheWholesaleForums.co.uk won’t
necessarily tell you if a dropshipper or wholesaler is reliable, but they have
no problem jumping on vendors who
aren’t, and despite the URL extension, have plenty of US retailers that are
members. - Worldwide Brands is
a reliable one-stop shop for finding Dropship sources. When we started it
was the first source we used to find Dropshippers.
Worldwide brands has since expanded to include wholesalers, and liquidators. While the $299 membership fee isn’t cheap, it is a lifetime membership. While some dropshippers are better than others, to date we have never been scammed by a dropshipper we have found in their database. Click
here for a preview of Worldwide Brands - If you have already selected your market, look for a retail association for
your particular line of products. Often retail assocations will have lists
of suppliers, and if nothing else, you can get advice and tips from retailers
in the same line as you are. Always invaluable!
I hope that gives you a starting point. Once you’re up, running, and have a few decent positions in the search engines; product sourcing becomes a whole lot easier. You’ll find the suppliers will seek you out 
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