Web Developer Log

How to Find Drop Ship Wholesale Products

2009-03-03T16:37:00.000-08:00

Knowing how to find drop ship wholesale products can be the lifeblood of your online business. Any online retail business needs a consistent and reliable source of products to sell. This is called product sourcing. Finding that reliabe source of product is the primary obstacle that new Internet entrepreneurs face. It's an ongoing challenge that existing businesses face as well, as they try to compete and grow.

For new entrepreneurs and for existing entrepreneurs, product sourcing is an essential and often difficult process. Whether you sell on an Internet Store or you sell on eBay, you need to know how product sourcing works.

If you are going to sell products on the Internet, you need a steady, continuous source of those products. And you need to be sure that you can buy those products at genuine wholesale prices, to be able to make a profit when you sell to your customers at your retail price. That means you have to find legitimate wholesale product suppliers that are willing to work with a home-based Internet business, which is not as easy as it sounds.

One obstacle is that most real wholesale suppliers will not work with you, unfortunately. A wholesale supplier's business is based on high volume sales. A wholesaler's profit margin is low, so they have to sell a lot of product in order to make money. Therefore a wholesaler's main business is selling truckloads of products to large retail chains like Walmart, Target, Macy's, etc. And retailers who can't buy in such large quantities simply aren't profitable for wholesalers to deal with.

That's why most Internet lists of wholesalers are useless. You've probably seen them if you've searched for wholesalers on the Internet - "trade directories" claiming to contain thousands of names of wholesale suppliers from aound the world. The problem is that the wholesale trade directories are often so outdated that many of the companies listed aren't even in business anymore, and also that most of the so-called wholesalers are not properly researched and verified, so that the lists and trade directories are filled with middlemen posing as wholesalers, charging more than true wholesale prices.

Most of the suppliers found in those Internet lists who ARE still in business and who ARE legitimate wholesalers, will not work with small, home-based Internet business owners because of the small scale involved.

Even in the rare case when you find a legitimate wholesaler in a search engine like Google.com, even they can be bad for your business. Why? Because when a wholesaler gets too well known on the Internet, they get overexposed to millions of people, which means you get too many other Internet sellers like yourself using them, which creates too much competition for their products for anyone to make a decent retail profit.

So that's how NOT to find legitimate wholesale sources. How CAN you find them?

For wholesale product sources, you're searching for wholesalers who are legitimate wholesale suppliers and not middlemen posing as wholesalers, and for wholesalers who are not overexposed or who don't spend a lot of money becoming well known on the Internet.

That means you have to go directly to the source. For example, if you wanted to sell Callaway Golf equipment, you'd go right to the top. You would call Callaway's corporate headquarters in Carlsbad, California, and ask for the sales department. You'd tell their sales department that you own a retail business and you want to sell some of Callaway's products. You'd ask them for a list of their wholesale distributers in the United States. They should be willing to give that information to you, and will problably give you the name of a regional sales director for you to contact as well. Then you would call the wholesale distributors they give you, and ask if they will sell to your Internet business at wholesale. That is how you find real, legitimate wholesalers that aren't over-exposed on the Internet, which gives you a competitive edge in your profit margin and over your competition.

Of course, you still have to get past the issue of whether they will sell to a small home-based Internet business. Most of them won't, so this research takes a great deal of time, but it is very important to your business that it's done and that it's done right.

All this has created a real business need that some Internet businesses are stepping up to fulfill - the need for providing that time-consuming up-font research to identify real, legitimate wholesalers willing to deal with small home-based Internet retailers.

Here are two of the most reputable Internet businesses providing that service:

The first is at doba.com which has developed working relationships with over 200 wholesale distributors, manufacturers, and craftsmen. When you sign up, you gain full access to all the drop ship wholesalers and their wholesale product catalogs. All in one place, at Doba, you can search and find wholesale products, as well as ordering and tracking your product orders in one central location.

Doba claims to add about five new wholesale suppliers or manufacturers every week. Doba does not warehouse any product, rather they have established relationships with suppliers and manufacturers all over the United States that agree to drop ship products for Doba members. Because of Doba's large member base, they are able to work with some of the largest and best wholesalers. Many of these manufacturers would be extremely difficult for most small and home-based businesses to work with, but Doba provides the services that allow you to work with them right away.

Another such service worth checking out is WorldWideBrands.com who has researched and developed an even more extensive list of legitimate drop ship wholesalers who are ready and willing to work with small home-based Internet businesses. WorldWideBrands.com also provides useful tools and services for identifying what products are selling well online - regarding what products and keywords people are searching for most, and how much competition exists for those products.

Having access to such a list of pre-qualified wholesale dropshippers and low-volume wholesalers is a huge time-saver, where the needed research and leg-work has already been done, and is frankly an invaluable service to any small home-based online retail venture.

Those two sites offer different pricing structures, with Doba.com having a monthly service fee, and WorldWideBrands.com having a one-time only lifetime membership fee. Both sites are worth looking into, when considering what your time is worth and the service they are providing.

Affiliate Marketing Notes

2008-03-08T11:54:00.000-08:00

There is a lot of scam affiliate marketing stuff out there. Right now, I'm looking at just 3 affiliate programs, at eBay.com, Amazon.com, and Travelocity.com. They seem to have decent affiliate programs that I've signed up with, all for free, and they provide links and banner logos you can put on your web sites.

It seems clear so far, that it all boils down to developing a web site that can draw a lot of traffic, or draw enough visitors so that some small fraction of those visitors click on the affiliate links and some small fraction of those actually buy something after you've forwarded them to eBay or Amazon or Travelocity.

The only thing I've bought, so far, is the Build A Niche Store (BANS) software, at http://buildanichestore.com . I was sold and I plunked down $97 and started developing eBay affiliate web sites -- it's geared specifically to the eBay affiliate program.
Anway, I don't completely regret it yet, but it has been a LOT of work developing the sites, even with the BANS tool which is supposed to make it easier. I guess it does make it easier, but it's still a LOT of work to do it right. I'm starting to feel a little bit like I was scammed and tricked into buying it, but not completely. I guess they do make it pretty clear that it takes a lot of work, but I haven't really followed all their advice, which is my own fault. They do say that doing the up-front SEO keyword research is important -- I was too anxious to get started and went ahead and developed five web sites, and now I have five web sites that get hardly any traffic, and now I'm trying to figure out how to draw traffic to the sites I already developed -- sort of doing it backwards.

Anyway, I wouldn't recommend buying the BANS software. Not yet, anyway, until I find out how workable this SEO stuff is, being able to draw traffic to my BANS web sites.
There is one guy named Mark Hansen who is heavily involved with the BANS software, who genuinely seems to want to help people be successful with the BANS tool, and he writes a lot of helpful stuff on his main web site http://thenichestorebuilder.com .

The Amazon and Travelocity affiliate links that I got have just sort of been throw-ins, sort of like the Google AdSense ads but better. Again, it all depends on having a web site that draws a lot of traffic. It's hard to come up with interesting stuff that people would want to visit and read and link to. It's all about having good content. From what I've read so far, that is the number one thing required for effective SEO or SEM -- having good interesting content -- all the rest will follow. Otherwise, your SEO efforts only amount to trying to trick the search engines into thinking your web site is better than it is. If you have a good web site with good interesting content to begin with, then it's just a matter of making sure the search engines are aware of it as much as possible. The search engines are pretty good at telling the good web sites from the bad, all things being equal (or unless you throw a lot of money into paid searches using AdWords and stuff like that).

Anyway, that's where I'm at currently, still a rookie at this.

Niche Markets

2008-02-27T17:45:00.000-08:00

Below are the web sites I'm developing using the Build A Niche Store (BANS) software. It's a handy tool geared for developing eBay affiliate web sites for showcasing niche markets in the eBay marketplace. It still requires a lot of work, though, to develop a decent-looking site, and to do the upfront research needed to identify fruitful niche markets to enter. All niche markets are not the same, of course. Some are too crowded with competition, and some don't have enough interest or traffic to make it worthwhile to enter. So the trick is to find the right balance of competition and demand -- an overcrowded market is very difficult to break into and be noticed, while on the other hand, a too-low-demand market won't have enough traffic to be profitable. The people at the BANS web site forums, thankfully, provide many helpful tips on how to do this kind of research. It takes time and effort to do it right.

A common mistake, which I also made, is to jump right in and start developing web sites without doing the upfront research needed to identify the exact niche market categories and keywords that will be fruitful. I'm reportedly not the first one to stumble across this idea of affiliate marketing and this relatively handy BANS tool for developing eBay affiliate web sites and then get all excited and jump right in and start running before doing the upfront research needed to be running in the right direction.

Developing these sites has still been interesting and educational, and a lot of work, and with more work I should be able to spruce up their appearance and better refine the target niche markets. I've just begun to start thinking about generating traffic, which is something that should be done from the start, sooner rather than later. We'll see how it goes. Here are the web sites I have so far and the descriptions I'll use when listing them in various online directories:

mp3loco.com
Bargain MP3 Players and Product Reviews - MP3 players of all kinds now availabe in auction sales - many great deals for MP3 players by Sony, Samsung, Microsoft Zune, SanDisk Sansa, Apple iPod, Rio, RCA, iRiver, and more.

NiceCondos.net
Great deals on bargain condo rentals and vacation rentals of all kinds - VRBO condos, beach condos, Florida, the Carolinas, Caribbean, Hawaii condos, and more.... Super low-priced condos now available in current online auction sales.

NiceBoats.net
Great bargains on pre-owned boats of all kinds - bass boats, pontoon boats, fishing boats, sailboats, cabin cruisers, cuddies, powerboats, and more.... Super low-priced boats of all kinds now available in current online auction sales. Shop and save at NiceBoats.net.

RareCoinsMarket.com
Rare U.S. Coins and Ancient Coins - great prices, huge selection, now available in current online auction sales. Shop and save at RareCoinsMarket.com.

BallCardsMarket.com
Vintage Baseball Cards - great prices, huge selection, now available in current online auction sales. Rookies, hall-of-famers, complete sets - fill out your old baseball card collections - shop and save at BallCardsMarket.com.

Domain Name Buying Spree

2008-02-26T16:33:00.000-08:00

Below is a list of web site domain names I've recently registered, beginning a couple months ago. At first my plan was to register as many unclaimed domain names that I could think of (names that sounded half-way desirable or marketable) and then list them for sale at sites like sedo.com and godaddy.com, to Internet business developers interested in creating a web site using that name, or to someone who wants to buy it and sell it again at a higher price. It's like real estate land speculation, Internet style. Ultimately it's web site content and branding that matter most, but having a good web site domain name to start with is important as well.

Registering a domain name gives you the rights to use that name for one year, at which time you can choose to renew the registration for another year, and so on. I registered my first domain name at godaddy.com where it costs $9.99 a year. My others I've been registering at 1and1.com where it only costs $6.99 a year to register a domain name. GoDaddy is a much bigger operation and might have better technical support if needed, but 1and1.com looks like a reputable outfit as well.

Anyway, it soon became apparent that thousands of other people are trying to buy and sell domain names as well -- I knew a lot of people were doing it, but I underestimated how MANY people are doing it and how cluttered the marketplace is with domain names, most of them worthless. I haven't given up on the idea, but now I'm focussing more on developing a few web sites using these domain names, to develop content and work on drawing traffic.

The first group of domain names below are currently listed for sale at sedo.com. If you're interested or have any questions about these, send me an e-mail at kenbob1961@yahoo.com.

The second group are the ones I'm developing myself as eBay affiliate web sites.

Parked at sedo.com:

keywestcredit.com
ny-pizzerias.com
nytaxi.org
alumni-gear.com
hdtvjunction.com
cafesofparis.com
chicagodaytours.com
dvdgizmos.com
BonsaiValley.com
RingtoneTree.com
RingtoneLoco.com

eBay affiliate web sites:

mp3loco.com
NiceCondos.net
NiceBoats.net
RareCoinsMarket.com
BallCardsMarket.com