As customers order from your online retail store, all you have to do is contact your Dropshipper- who will in turn, prepare the orders for shipment. You get to purchase the item at a wholesale price and place your own mark-up price.  

Most dropship Wholesale Suppliers practice “blind dropshipping” which means, you can use your own brand name in reselling the products. When customers purchase from your shop, they won’t even know that you are just a reseller.

Nevertheless, the concept of a dropshipping business is not without challenges. As the number of online retailers increase, you need to be a lot smarter to stay competitive and survive the business.

Challenges of Dropshipping

If you are an online retailer or planning to start your own dropshipping online business, you need to be ready to face up to the challenges. Below are some tips:

Make sure that you are dealing with a legal and trusted Dropshipper. Bear in mind that scammers abound in the industry. If you are not careful, you could be working with a middleman who is making a much bigger profit from the sales you make. See to it that you are dealing directly with a legitimate Wholesale Supplier, not just another retailer or another link in the chain.

Ensure your customer’s satisfaction. As a reseller, it is your reputation that is directly on the line. Therefore, it is your duty to ensure that your Wholesale Dropshipper can live up to its promises. Before reselling, make sure that you are confident about the products you will market. It is a must to order sample products from your dropshipper.

Can you be sure that only quality products will be shipped out to your customer? Can you monitor the status of the orders from your end? Will your customers be given guarantee for their purchases?

Watch out for dropshippers that charge fees. A legitimate dropshipper will never require upfront payment just to open an account. You will only be required to submit payment once you have made a sale from your site.

Offer more than one product. It is advisable to offer more than one type of product from your store. If your dropshipper offers only one kind of product, try to find other legitimate dropshippers with products to complement your store.

However, some may people plunge into the business without first doing research and investigation. As a result, they may find themselves facing failure as soon as they start up a dropshipping business. Below are common dropshipping mistakes that you should avoid:

Finding Wholesale Suppliers from search engines.

Although you can find a lot of information you need from the internet, it is actually not a recommended resource when looking for Dropship Wholesale Suppliers.

You should know that genuine Wholesalers do not really advertise online. They only enlist their contact information exclusively in dropshipping directories to avoid dealing with a large bulk of unqualified applications.

Most so-called “Wholesale Dropshippers” that you can find online are actually middlemen who are directly in contact with the real Supplier. If you really want to get the best wholesale price, make sure that you are dealing with a legitimate Wholesaler.

Not considering the Terms and Conditions.

As a reseller, you have responsibilities to fulfill to your customers as your Wholesaler has to you. Therefore, it is very important on your part to understand the Terms and Conditions of your Wholesale Supplier. Pay special attention to the disclosures included in your contract.

How can you ensure the quality of products that will be delivered to your customers? Can you track the delivery of customer orders on your end? What happens if a customer complains about the order?

Can your dropshipper guarantee that they have sufficient stock to carry? Beware of middlemen scammers who disguise themselves as Wholesalers when in fact, they are just another link to the chain, making profit from your sales.

Accepting “Fake” Branded Goods from a Supplier.

Watch out for suppliers that offer designer label items which can turn out to be fake.  If you want to resell branded goods, you really want to do further investigation as to the source of the products.

If you are being offered designer items at incredibly cheap prices, it should be a warning not to sign up for the deal.  Remember, if you have been found to be selling fake items, it can badly damage your reputation as well as your company’s name for a long time.

If you want to get the lowest possible price for your purchases, you need to partner directly with a Wholesale Supplier. So how do you know that you’ve found the right one?

Consider the following tips on evaluating a trustworthy Wholesale Dropshipper:

Use a Dropshipping Directory. When in search of wholesalers, it is best to use a real dropshipping directory than online search engines. Although there may exist a few legitimate Wholesale Dropshippers online, it would be very difficult to identify them from the fake ones.

Legitimate dropship suppliers do not advertise their services over the internet. You are most likely to contact middleman scammers especially if you’re not familiar with the trade. To avoid getting scammed and wasting your time dealing with the wrong people, use a dropshipping directory from a reliable source.

Learn everything about dropshipping. You will need to do more than just a few readings to really understand the ins and outs of a dropshipping business. Nevertheless, being knowledgeable will protect you from being victimized by scammers.

Successful dropshipping greatly depends on using online marketing tools effective, partnering with a reliable dropshipper, selling high quality products, and making sure that customer orders are delivered on time.

Conduct marketing studies. Before plunging into a dropshipping business, market research must be conducted. What kind of products do you plan to sell? Who is your target market?  Who are your competitors? How do you plan to promote the products? Do not simply make a decision based upon the trends. Always consider the long term possibilities of the business.

Provide quality service. Customer satisfaction is very important for any kind of business. You need to really understand the products you are selling. Before dealing with a Wholesale Supplier, ask samples of the products so you can use them firsthand. If you know that your products are worth buying, it will be easier to convince other people to purchase.

Make your customers feel important. The secret to building good and lasting customer relationship is to give your customers the best treatment at all times. Apart from effective advertisements, never underestimate the power of word-of-mouth. Happy customers will surely come back to do business with you and you will stay on top of the market.

Find your niche. Instead of trying to sell your products to everyone, do market research to determine your niche market. This way, you can focus your marketing strategies on a particular niche – people who are most likely to be your buying customers.

Get your own domain. If you are going to sell online, a domain name is important. Purchasing your own domain will give you the option to choose a website name that is catchy, easy to remember and that best represents your company.

Get a reliable web host. Some web hosting services offer a very cheap package but with limited services. You may experience a lot of down times with the wrong host and that means losing prospective customers who may have visited your website during the down time.

Hire a professional graphics designer. The right graphics can really liven up an online retail shop. If you are not familiar with web designing, you may want to hire a professional graphics designer to help you out.

Work on your website content. Adding well-written articles to your website and distributing these articles on the web is another way to get more exposure. If you are not comfortable with writing articles or if you do not have the time to write, you can hire a ghostwriter for just a small cost.

Be an affiliate. The right affiliates can help in attracting more customers to your store. Choose affiliate programs that offer high quality products and services. Having partnerships with trusted names can also build up your company’s reputation

Optimize your website. As an online retail business owner, you must learn Search Engine Optimization techniques to achieve your website’s maximum potential.  If have sufficient budget, you may consider hiring a team of SEO specialists to help increase your web traffic. Spending two to three hours a day doing SEO yourself can make a big difference as well.

What are the myths about wholesale purchasing that you should know about?  In this article, we’ve listed the four most common misconceptions that people have about buying wholesale products.  If you’re planning to start your own online retail shop or dropshipping business, knowing these facts should help you.

You should sell your products ONLY at Ebay.

It is a good idea to explore what eBay can do for you.  Opening an eBay is technically easier than launching a business website immediately.  However, just because eBay is a huge market doesn’t mean you should concentrate all your budget, time and effort in this one auction hosting site.  Don’t limit yourself to eBay.  Find other opportunities to get your brand out in the market and let more people know you.

Wholesale Suppliers can easily be found in the internet.

When in search of a wholesale supplier, all you need to do is just type in the keywords “wholesalers” in your search bar and you’re all set, right?  WRONG.  Most of the wholesalers you’ll find listed in the search engines are not REAL Wholesalers.  These are middlemen scammers who want to get in your way to cut back from your profit.  Never use the internet for contacting prospective wholesaler suppliers.  Instead, use a dropshipping wholesale directory or look in trade magazines for information.

There’s no need to do market research.

Some people are too excited about the prospect of having an online business that they forget to do the most important preparations like market research.  Never plunge into a business without conducting your own feasibility studies or market research.

Get to know your target market as well as your competitors.  What products would be most profitable for your niche?  How much will you spend for overhead costs and how much is your estimated profit?  These are essential questions that you can only answer accurately once you’re done with your market research.

Finding the right Wholesale Supplier is a piece of cake.

Through the internet, finding anything should be easy.  But with regards to finding legitimate Wholesale Suppliers, it may not be as easy as you think.  You’ll need to do your homework.  As we’ve said, most of the “suppliers” advertised in the search engines are either middlemen or scammers.  Even if a few are legitimate, it would be very hard to distinguish them from the rest.

By using a dropshipping directory, you’ll need to exert some time and effort getting to know a prospective Wholesale Supplier.  Before applying for an account, you should make sure that you have a Business Tax ID since legitimate suppliers will NEVER work with an unregistered business.  If a certain wholesaler tells you that you can open an account with them without having to provide your Business Tax ID, then chances are, you’re dealing with a fake Wholesaler.

Setting aside a separate budget to promote your home based dropshipping business is an important step. Of course, you need advertising to promote the products you’re selling. But what if you’re on a limited budget? Below are practical tips on how a new dropship product retailer can save from the costs of business advertising:

Don’t try out everything.

There is broad range of advertising methods (radio & newspaper ads, Pay-per-click ads, online banners, direct mail, etc.) that you can choose from. Though many large companies can afford to use all these methods at the same time, it isn’t practicable to try out everything all at once. It is better to choose one or two marketing methods that work best for your business and concentrate on those tactics to generate positive results.

Try out free advertising.

Don’t shrug off free marketing tools that you can find on the web. What’s great about online advertising is that most of the tools you can get are much cheaper and you can even find some that are free. Examples of no-cost online marketing tools that you can use to promote your dropshipping business are social bookmarking sites, forums, search engines, article directories, press release websites, blogs, etc. These venues allow you to reach out to your target market without spending big on advertising.

Advertise to your target audience.

It is crucial that your marketing campaigns reach out to your target audience or niche market. Therefore, before launching any type of advertising campaign, make sure that you have a precise definition of your target market.

Don’t forget to advertise offline.

Even if you intend to sell your products online, don’t forget the power of offline advertising. Start with your friends and family. Ask them to spread the word about your online shop and the products you offer. You can also build your list of prospects by asking referrals or recommendations from your customers or from the people you know.

Track the results of your advertising.

Every business owner must keep track of the results regardless of what type of advertising method is used. For online marketing campaigns, you may need to monitor your results after at least a month or two to really see whether or not that particular method works well for your dropshipping business. If not, you may need to try out other tactics that are more suited to the business you do.

Don’t try to sell all your products and services.

Focus is very important no matter what type of marketing method you use. Trying to sell everything you offer may prove to be ineffective. On the other hand, focusing on just one product and its benefits will help convince your prospects to try out what you’re selling.