At present time, there is, in my opinion, a great deal of misunderstanding about dropshipping and wholesale products, and I believe this misunderstanding leads many to believe that they are the victim of scammers. There are, of course, many people willing to fleece the innocent, but all to often the accusation of fraud results from lack of correct information.

I’d like to address three area of confusion:

• how to identify a true wholesaler
• what a dropshipper is
• what a wholesale dropshipper is

First, in the United States, a legitimate wholesale business is an authorized distributor of products from one or more manufacturers. A true wholesale business is licensed by its state of residence to do business as a wholesaler and to sell products without charging sales tax to licensed retail businesses. As such, a true wholesaler must require proof of your sales tax permit in order to sell to you. A wholesale business sets its wholesale prices, so although wholesale prices are generally lower than the retail prices you see in shops, it is up to the wholesaler to determine prices. There isn’t one generic price. Usually, wholesalers give the lowest price when products are purchased in bulk quantities. The greater the quantity, the lower the price per unit.

A dropshipper, on the other hand, is a business that warehouses products and ships them out under your business name. In this scenario, you sell the products and collect payment from your customer, and then place your order(s) with the dropshipper, who handles the warehousing and shipping.

Many of the dropshippers you find advertising on the Internet are retail businesses selling goods to you at a discount. As such they are a sort of “middleman” between you and the real wholesaler. Unless your dropshipper requires you to have a sales tax permit in order to business, it is not a true wholesaler. That does not make them a scam or fraud, however. Many dropshippers advertise “wholesale prices” or “below wholesale prices” or “wholesale to the public.” While this wording may be a little misleading, it is not dishonest because it doesn’t explictly state that it is a wholesale business.

But it is up to you to determine whether or not a dropshipper or any other discount business is a true wholesaler. The way to do that is to look for the sales tax permit requirement. If the business sells to anyone regardless of sales tax permit, it is not a true wholesaler.

A true wholesale dropshipper is a wholesale business who also dropships products. WYNIT and DBL would be a good examples of this. WYNIT andDBL are two of the larget wholesalers in the U.S. of commercial electronics products, and they also dropship for you. In order to business with them, you must set up an account and also fax in proof of your sales tax permit or other authorization from your state to sell retail goods.

I hope this clarifies some of the questions regarding wholesalers and dropshippers and how to avoid scams, frauds, and misunderstandings.

First, ebay brings together buyers and sellers in a global, online market place that promises, for the most part, a secure shopping and selling enviornment. As a shopper, you can shop the world from your kitchen table for almost any item conceivable. As a seller, you can reach out to buyers anywhere in the world capable of plugging in. In my opinion, that really wraps it up in a nutshell. Of course, let’s not forget the technology that allows ebay to manage the complexity of the thousands upon thousands of auctions taking place at any given moment, and the hundreds of thousands of financial transactions taking place every moment of the 24 hour day.

Although I am not particularly gung-ho on ebay, think about what you get in terms of advertising space for your product auctions for the price and compare that to the reach of local radio, newspaper, and tv advertising. Even though the cost of “doing” ebay has gone up considerably over the years, it is still a pretty good deal. As an aside, it is easy to forget that ebay is not the only game in town. It may be the biggest, but there are many other auction venues to take advantage of, these days.

It is also relatively easy to go into business as a seller on ebay. With the economic crisis, ebay has flourished allowing instant home business start-up for the newly unemployed trying to make fast cash. And for shopper trying to save a buck, the competition on ebay often keeps prices at or below even wholesale prices. Moreover, with the economic down slump, more and more people are open to purchasing used items, and ebay is, if nothing else, the world’s most magnificent flea market and perfect venue for selling used, damaged, and one-off items. This, by the way, is an ebay seller’s secret–that ebay is a dream market place for used, liquidated, closed-out, one of a kind, surplus, collectible, and even damaged items.

As I said above, I don’t see how ebay cannot be successful. In fact, now that I think about it, starting my own regional auction service might not be a bad idea . . . . Basically, I think that ebays success lies in its ability to bring buyers and sellers and virtually every market imaginable together in a single, easy to use online market place.

Perhaps the Amazon Web Store deserves a second look. There is no doubt that running an ecommerce store in which you dropship hot selling products is an attractive business model. After all, with dropshipping you don’t have to sorry about stocking inventory, so that running the business from home is feasible.
With the right products, this can work well for ebay and other auction sites. This is particularly alluring for people, perhaps you, wanting to start a home business but with limited start up funds.

However, there is another solution for those not wanting to risk running and managing their own ecommerce store website. After all, the technical obstacles can be considerable, time consuming, and expensive when your priority is simply getting the business up and running. It occured to me the “other day” that one cost effective way to test the waters and make some money doing so might be through an Amazon Web Store. This obvisously is not going to be for everybody, this is actually affiliate marketing, but this could be a great, hands on testing ground for successful products. Just a thought. Any way, you can actually try WebStore by Amazon free for 30 Days if you want to give this a shot. By the way, this will allow you to create your own brand online. Once you establish your brand, you can make the transition to a different ecommerce environment or expand your selling environment. Also keep in mind that by using Amazon, you will have access to lots of Amazon content, and in this way your site will have content depth and avoid being what is referred to as a “thin” affiliate site.

• How do I find products to sell on EBay?
• Is dropshipping profitable?
• Can I make money dropshipping on EBay?

When searching for products to sell on Ebay or for supply sources for EBay, it helps to understand the kind of marketplace EBay is, and you may want to see a couple of earlier posts, EBay Wholesale Suppliers, and Is Wholesale Dropshipping the Right Way to Source Your EBay Auctions? These days, selling products successfully on EBay depends a great deal on understanding the sort of selling EBay is. However, is dropshipping profitable, and can you really make money dropshipping products on EBay?

It is very important to understand the difference between dropshipping companies and companies who dropship products. A dropshipping company is a company specifically set up to dropship a range of goods. The dropship company itself is usually a retail business with contacts to wholesale distributors and/or liquidation inventory distributors. Many of these companies are legitimate businesses but unsuitable for the EBay market place because the cost of doing business with them is to high to successfully compete. In order to dropship on EBay, you must be very sure of your product and have a thorough understanding of the competition. You must thoroughly analyze the precise cost of running an auction for your product to know whether or not you can make a profit.

Companies who dropship, on the other hand, are companies in business to distribute and/or manufacture a particular product line. Their business is not dropshipping, per se. Their business is selling/distributing a particular product. They may provide dropshipping as a service to their clients. Such companies are typically true wholesalers, and your best prices will generally come from this sort of company. However, can you make a profit on EBay? Again, generally speaking, it will be very difficult to succeed on EBay selling goods and/or dropshipping goods because EBay itself is a wholesale selling environment. That is, most goods on EBay are already selling at or below wholesale prices. Therefore, if you buy at wholesale prices and sell above that to make a profit, you may not be able to compete with other sellers selling at or below your price. This is why it will take research to determine if you have a reasonable chance of making a profit.

Dropshipping generally works best for ecommerce, and it is in the ecommerce market place that you stand the best chance of making a success of your business. You must still do the research and business planning before you launch your store. And again, you will need to find product suppliers with reliable products, inventory, and good customer service.

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or do the naysayers have smoke drifting out of their dank, moonless back passage? Who can say? Well, not me. Too many factors to take into account to make any definitive statement. One thing I can tell you for sure, though, is that EBay is not a retailer’s game. Now, what does this have to do with wholesale and dropship being if not a thing of the past, then perhaps not a thing of present?

First, as I have written elsewhere, EBay is a wholesaler’s selling environment. That means that almost all mass produced goods on EBay are already selling at wholesale or below wholesale prices. If you are looking wholesale source or dropship sources for products to sell on EBay, then right away you are likely to be unable to complete because your retail prices will never beat the competing wholesale prices. This is where the big sellers have you beat because they can afford to buy in the quantities necessary to keep their prices–and profits–low. But the big sellers make up for tiny profits by selling vast numbers of goods.

This has never been more true then in this terrible economy. But people are still spending money, and as the mega retail outlets fail, they open up space for small sellers, such as ourselves, to come in and sweep up profits. As far as EBay is concerned, you have the best chance of competing by selling liquidated goods and closeout stock. That is where you will find the best prices and the sector where you’ll most likely be able to make your money back. I’d advise you to stay away from electronics, but that is up to you. You may have an angle that will work for you. My main point, here, is that if you are relying on wholesale and dropship supplier for EBay, you may not be able to survive against the competition who will be selling at or below your own purchase price for the goods.

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I know this may seem counterintuitive and especially so if you are just thinking about whether selling online might be worth the risk given the state of the economy. My thought on this–as Circuit City goes bankrupt–is that there is no time like the present. Circuit City is crashing because it is too large and has over extended itself, that is, it is soley dependent on credit in order to survive. You, as a small or single person ecommerce seller do not have that problem. No time is better to sneak in under the big and crashing companies to undersell them. People want to buy, and you, as a micro business, stand to profit from the rock bottom prices available to you. You can survive and profit on much less than required by such lumbering business behemoths as Circuit City.

I have to cut this short, but I think that this could be an exciting time for small businesses, eBay sellers, and single person/mom and pop ecommerce businesses.

Technorati Tags: selling products online, ecommerce, wholesale dropship products

As a member myself, I can really only tell you that I like the membership. However, I have been chastised on this blog for insisting that Salehoo is legitimate source of product suppliers. I think some of the controversy arises from misunderstanding about what Salehoo is. Salehoo is primarily an online directory of dropshippers, wholesalers, factory/manufacturer product distributors, liquidation sources, and discounted products suppliers. Salehoo itself, as I have written many times elsewhere in this blog (do a search), does not supply or sell products. In some cases, people think Salehoo is products supplier and are disappointed when they find out otherwise.

Now, while I think Salehoo is a great source of products, it is not the only answer. It is one resource available to assist in finding products to sell online and on eBay. However, the truth is that Salehoo
may not be able to provide the answer for all possible product sourcing needs. In fact, it may not be the right source for you. That will depend on what your product sourcing needs are and the type of business you plan to set up.

Personally, I think the Salehoo forum is its most valuable asset and reliable source of current information on product suppliers, selling venues, and a lot of “how to” advice. That, to me, is more important than a mere list of product suppliers.

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Nevertheless, electronics is a hot market, even in these difficult economic times, and I have a few tips to help boost your EBay sales. And by the way, these tips can apply across many different niches, not just electronics, and not just on EBay. That is, these tips are valuable for online selling in general.

For selling electronics on EBay:

Promote an excellent return policy, and be sure to list all warranty details clearly in an easy to read and understand manner.

Don’t rely on generic photos. Whenever possible, take your own photos in order to accent the unique character of your products. If you don’t do this, your products will look just like everyone elses. On EBay, it is important to make your items stand out in any way you can.

Always state the brand name and model number at the start of your title. Always do this!

Make yourself a branded template for your EBay store (if you have a store). If you can’t do it yourself, then hire a graphics expert to do it for you.

Use longer 7 to 10 day auctions to ensure you get the most traffic possible for your auction.

On your listing photo that shows up in the search results, add text that promotes special deals or some particular hot feature of your auction.

I think these are pretty cool tips, and if you are dead set on selling electronics on EBay, then be sure to add these to your repetoir of auction strategies.

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This question is really impossible to answer without knowing what products you are seeking. there isn’t just one set of companies who handle all products. If you are seeking the major wholesale companies for DVDs, you will find that there are three major players, but these are not the same companies handling consumer electronics or clothing or healthcare products.

There are companies that are dropship aggregators. That means that they retail companies who either stock huge inventories of many different products or serve as a sort of broker for many different wholesale distributors. These companies often charge a membership fee or some other kind of recurring fee and in return provide you with a pre-loaded website or a data feed that you install on your own site. Some of these sorts of sites have an electronic interface between your site and their inventory so that when a sale is made, money is credited to you and the products shpped to your customer under your business name. Examples of such dropship aggregators would be dropshipdesign.com, doba.com, megagoods.com, and bnfusa.com. It is important to understand that these sorts of drop ship companies are retailers selling goods at steep discount. Generally speaking, they are not true wholesalers.

Although there are a few large wholesale distributors who may advertise a dropship service, generally speaking, dropshipping is arranged by an agreement between you and a specific wholesaler serving the product line you are selling as a retailer. If you are seeking specific product lines, leave a comment, and I may be able to help.

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Perhaps you feel that the real wholesale dropshippers are the ones who are not promoting themselves throughout the Internet and you wonder how you can connect with them. Good question. And we have some advice.
After all, real wholesalers really have no primary need for search engine visibility as that is not their primary means of reaching clients.

Right now, it seems that everyone is hot for dropshippers, and not very many of those seeking “real” drop ship companies really know what it is they are looking for or have even a basic understanding of what dropshipping is or its relationship to wholesaling. If you are a beginner retailer or e-tailer, you may want to give thought to the following points.

Drop shippers send goods direct to your customers after you and your customer have coordinated the purchase and after you have alerted and paid your supplier for the purchase. Dropshipping was also originally an agreement that you set up with a supplier of whatever particular product you would be selling.

Unfortunately, because of the Internet, many people confuse the ability have goods sent from a manufacturer or supplier directly to the customer with an easy way to run a business. This is not true. Dropshipping does not equate with ease of managing a business. The fact of the matter is that running an Internet based business is no easier than running a land-based store front business.
The notion that running an online business is inherently easier because it is online is rubbish.

Getting dropshipping is not really the problem. The main issue is having a real business that provides a unique product or service. When you has a retailer selling in a particular product line have many customers, your suppliers will often be glad to provide you with dropshipping and generally do so with no extra fees to you, the retailer.

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I’ll try to help out a bit. First of all, the absolute best way to know the true wholesale price for any given dvd is simply to have an account with one of the real wholesale distributors. By “real wholesale,” I mean a company licensed and authorized to distribute dvds in the United States. There are actually 3 major companies that most dealers work with, though there are hosts of smaller whoelsalers and dropshippers.

Next, if you don’t have an account or can’t seem to find true wholesalers, you can check the following places:

• EBay
• Walmart
• Best Buy

On EBay, dvds are generally sold at or well below wholesale prices. In fact, with respect to dvds, EBay might give you a falsely low estimation of wholesale price. Be sure to check what the buy-it-now prices are and what dvds are actually selling for. You may need to look at shipping prices as well to see if sellers are trying to recoup losses or add to profits in this way.

Walmart and Best Buy prices are also at wholesale or very near wholesale. Sale prices for dvds will always be at wholesale and clearance bin items probably at or below wholesale.

I know this may be hard to believe, but believe it. Do the prices seem high to you? In that case you may have been mislead into thinking that wholesale dvd prices are actually much lower than they really are. Again, I feel you pain. We have all been in exactly that place.

If you are interested in what I think is the absolute best list of wholesale, dropship, liquidation, and studio dvd resources, you want to check out this entertainment guide. I warn you, the sales page is a bit cheesy, but list can’t be beat. I own it, and I swear by it.

The most comprehensive list of reliable dvd suppliers available!

More wholesale and drop ship company resources

Technorati Tags: wholesale dvds, legitimate wholesale dvds, wholesale dvd list

Finding wholesale products suppliers and finding true wholesale prices is actually incredibly easy. Sorry, I know this is a problem for many–perhaps you–who want to try their hand eBay or home ecommerce or selling at flea markets. Even though this may be easy for me, it may not be so easy for you, and believe me, I feel your pain! I have been there.

Keep in mind that true wholesale businesses are licensed to distribute products from manufacturers without charging sales tax. The prices they set are the true wholesale prices as they are the authorizied distributor. Although many wholesalers may still require minimum bulk purchases, more and more are willing to sell in single unit quantities. However, the prices for single units will always be higher than if you buy in bulk. That is just the nature of the business. Therefore, the best way to know the exact true wholesale price is to have an account with one or more wholesale distributors to specialize in your product line.

If you set up accounts with real wholesalers, you will be given phone and email access to your own personal sales rep. That, in turn, will allow you to know the day to day prices for any given product. Some big wholesalers, such as DBL mark their clearance well below their normal single unit wholesale price. However, you would never know about this without an account.

But what if you don’t have any accounts with real wholesale businesses? You can still get an accurate idea of wholesale prices doing researching venues that sell to the public at wholesale or near wholesale prices. Some examples . . . Ebay, Walmart, Best Buy. Most popular consumer goods are sold on eBay at or below wholesale cost. EBay is a wholesale selling environment, not a retail environment as many might suppose. Check the selling or buy it now prices, and this will generally give you a wholesale or below wholesale price. In some cases as with dvds, sellers offer buy it now prices well below wholesale and take a loss. Walmart sale prices also give you a good idea of wholesale price, and the same is true for Best Buy. Check the prices on Best Buy sale items, and I guarantee that you are seeing wholesale prices. Possibly even below if they ar liquidating stock.

So there you have it. This is not mysterious. It can be made to seem mysterious by marketers who have something to gain from your confusion.

If you would rather not mess with the work of finding products suppliers, there are some good online wholesale memberships that will give you literally thousands of resources. Try Salehoo or Aid and Trade, for example. For a modest fee, our sister site at Elite Product Sourcing will even generate a custom list for you based on your specific needs.

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Technorati Tags: drop ship companies, ebay products suppliers, salehoo products sourcing, wholesale price, finding wholesale products

Well . . . yes. But a reliable wholesale supplier list is only as reliable as it serves your needs. There are legitimate wholesale directories listing drop ship companies and wholesale sources for eBay products suppliers. Personally, I like Salehoo. I’m a member myself and think it does a pretty good job with its supplier list as well as offering a wide range of services. I catch some flak on this blog from people who think that Salehoo is a scam or from disgruntled members who have some other beef. Salehoo does require work. You do–in my opinion–have to work the supplier list, and I think it is also important to work the forum in order to get the most out of Salehoo.

You can’t join Salehoo or any other online wholesale supplier membership and expect money to fall into your lap. Ultimately, the results you get are only as good as the effort you put into the resources available.

There are zillions of lists for sale on the Internet, and you can take your chances. In my opinion, the online dropship wholesale membership resources, such as Salehoo or wholesale101 are really helpful because you can network and share information with other members. The product suppliers listed are generally updated, and you can always get fresh feedback from the other members and site owners.

I have to say, I think it is incredibly easy to find drop ship companies, wholesale distributors, and other product sources for home business and eBay products suppliers.

However, if you are seeking a list of true wholesalers who also offer dropship services, you may need to be prepared to spend the time on due diligence. Finding real wholesalers is not difficult and even finding drop ship companies is not much of a challange. However, locating a premade list of vast numbers of true wholesalers who can reliably accomodate your dropshipping needs may be a different matter.

Dropshipping is often a service that you negotiate or request from a wholesaler, not something that is an advertised feature, and certainly not something that would necessarily ever be promoted to the public at large. Remember, real wholesalers focus their promotion on professional retailers and are not concerned about advertising to the general public. Although the amount of money spent over the Internet may run well into the billion dollar zone, the amount of money made in Internet retail ecommerce is still relatively small compared to brick and morter retail.

Elsewhere on this site, I’ve provided short lists of dropship aggregators. These are generally retail businesses who themselves stock huge numbers of products for dropshipping or broker goods from true wholesale distributors. Using the example of Salehoo, that membership does list true wholesalers who also dropship, but you will also find many other discount businesses offering dropship services, and these can be of use, particularly if you are selling at flea markets or from your own online ecommerce site.

Personally, I think the best way to locate a supplier is to start with a product. To my way of thinking, it is much easier to find a supplier if you know what it is you want to sell. However, if you are having trouble with that or generally just having trouble breaking through to the other side of product supply, a wholesale list, perferably an online membership, can be a real advantage.

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Technorati Tags: drop ship directory, dropshipping, wholesale ebay products suppliers, drop ship companies, product sourcing for home business

This is what I’m talking about. EBay is one of the most trafficed sites on the Internet. It is the world’s largest gararge sale. Truly. You can sell anything, anything on eBay.

And, just as you can sell anything on eBay, you can also make money off of anything sold on eBay by being an affiliate. Basically, what that means is that by signing up for an eBay affiliate account (free) and then referring people to eBay, you make a commission off of anything they buy.

Now, I don’t want to suggest that this doesn’t take any work to do, but it is made much, much easier thanks to the Build A Niche Store software that can build your eBay store automatically. Build a Niche Store is also known as BANS. This requires no technical knowledge to use. The product was designed to be used out of the box by anyone no matter what level of technical understanding you have.

What BANS does is allow you to build as many content based websites as you want that allow you to earn income through the eBay affiliate program.

That mean you can:

• Build a store around one or more eBay category numbers.
• Build a store using keyword search queries.
• Build a store based around an eBay seller id.
• Build a store based around a geographical area.

You can also choose from 5 dfferent product layout styles that allow you to customize the item listings of your store by switching on or off the following parts of your listings:

• Image: the actual product listing image.
• Title: the first written line of each product listing.
• Bids: how many bids there have been on each product.
• Price: the current price of the product listing.
• Time: how long the product listing will remain listed for.
• Paypal: whether or not to display the Paypal image.

BANS also allows you full control over exactly how many products you choose to display.

I’ll also add that this is tried and true software and not some passing fad. The eBay affiliate program is earning many people a lot of money. BANS provides a reliable, easy, high end solution to the creation of eBay affiliate stores.

If this sounds interesting, here are some example of real BANS sites:

• China at a Glance
• Turbo Guides–Turbo Charged Cars
• Guitar Gateway
• The Dali Code

Find out more about how you can Build an EBay Niche Store and start making money, today!

Technorati Tags: ebay, ebay niche store, bans, ebay affiliate program, ebay affiliate

Dropshipping
Many people wanting to use the Virtuemart (VM) shopping cart and also dropship products, want the sale made on their Joomla ecommerce site to be automatically recorded with the dropshipper so that the sale is recorded automatically and the product shipped without any other muss or fuss.

I’m very sorry, but neither VM nor any other shopping cart has this kind of functionality built in. If your dropshipper has the computer and software infrastructure to handle this kind of service, you could have VM modified to interface with your dropshipper. The only drop ship company I know of that might be able to offer you this kind of service is Inventory Source. Inventory Source is not really a dropshipper but more of a liason between you and a pretty good number of dropshippers and drop ship wholesalers. They provide the ecommerce interface that connects you with the drop ship companies who work with Inventory Source. They might be able to modify Virtuemart to interface with their system so that sales, bookkeeping, and shipping would all occur automatically.

Check it out.

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