When selling online it’s important to keep your eyes peeled for new product lines and suppliers. The key is to be ahead of the selling curve and ensure you’re continuing to offer competitive prices to your customers. One way to do this is to search for international manufacturers, suppliers, and distributors as they can typically offer you better wholesale pricng on the merchandise your're looking for.
Here are some tips to help you on your way:
- Search Google. It sounds obvious, but typing in search terms like, supplier, importer, distributors, B2C suppliers, as well as some keywords specific to your product line will pull up thousands of results. Start at the top and work your way down trying to glean what you can about each company. Remember to look for contact information so you can drop suppliers an email with your questions.
- Check major B2B market places. Online B2B market places are a perfect place to source manufacturers, importers, and wholesale suppliers. Alibaba.com is one, Shopster.com is another, these two companies are a great source for dropship suppliers as both have a huge and varied supplier base.
- Join Industry groups, forums and other professional networks. Ask questions and start building relationships with industry insiders. It may take sometime (no one wants to share supplier info with the competition), but by building out your professional network and subscribing to industry newsletters, you’ll pick up supplier details and invaluable trade secrets. Author Tip: Once you’ve built out your network, stay-in-touch – it’s far quicker to ask someone you know a question, than to spend hours searching for it yourself. Don’t forget to return the favor either.
- Subscribe to trade publications. Get your hands on as many trade magazines and industry publications as possible. All of these magazines feature advertisements from manufacturers and wholesalers looking for people like you.
- Don’t be afraid to make a mistake. Reach out, build a relationship and if it doesn’t last forever, so what. Creating your perfect network of suppliers will require some trial and effort. It’s a learning process. All you need from your first supplier is for them to drop ship the product to your end-customer. Once you’ve managed that and are making a profit, then you can focus on finding suppliers who are a better fit for your business model or who offer better wholesale pricing.
Comments