First Steps In Building Your Drop Ship Wholesale Business

Basically I am going to guide you through the entire process of picking up a niche, finding good wholesale and drop ship suppliers and getting those buyers buying from you.

Let me start with few very important tips. Don't ignore them - they are the foundation of your further success.

Don't buy "all in one" packages for drop ship e-store.

The web is full with such offers who claim to provide you with a "business in a box". You just buy some package, they give you the products and you start selling. Wow, yeah! If that was really working why would they sell it to you instead of opening a thousands of internet stores themselves?

Photo by Sibi at Flickr

Don't buy this crap, it simply does not work. In most cases the users of such "all in one shops" can't even sell one single item - simply because the prices are outrageously high or even worse - there are no real items to sell.

These "all in one" drop ship wholesale packages are scams - plain and simple. Stay away from them and you'll be fine.

Don't try to be WallMart.

I can't believe that so many e-commerce wannabes try to beat WallMart and the other huge stores on price. You can't beat them. It's just impossible. They have the best contacts, they buy huge quantities, they have huge network of stores.

Instead of trying to beat the big companies, go around them. Offer goods that are not presented there.

"But they have everything!"

Do I hear you saying that? They don't have everything. They don't cover the niches with more than 1-2 different products. Yes, they have products in every niche, but they don't have big variety within a niche... I am sure you start getting the idea.

You need to pick a less competitive niche. Then offer full variety of products. That is how the small drop ship business guy can beat the big sharks!

Make it more than a store.

What do most e-commerce owners do? They just set up some shopping cart software, fill in the products and start waiting for big profits. Doing this they are just one of the many.

How can you do it much better?

Think as a buyer, what do you expect to see in the internet stores? What other than the products that you eventually want to buy?

Let me just shoot a few ideas at you:

related products

editor reviews

user reviews

articles

videos how to use the products

related services (repair, consultation etc)

related freebies

a blog

and many more

Do you see how many things you can do to stand out? And what much bigger business you could grow around one simple niche e-store?

Create an affiliate program

Most e-commerce store owners don't want to share their revenue with others. And it is understandable if they play the price game and earn 1-2% per sale.

You should not set up a store with so thin profit margins. Instead of playing the price game, create additional value, find good niche and earn at least 5% - 10% of each sale.

If you earn 10% per sale, you can easy offer 4% to your affiliates. This will get them working hard and sending you tons of free traffic. It's really as simple as that.

Affiliates will bring you HUGE traffic and will boost your search engine rankings - if you do the effort to attract them. Don't miss this step and you will kick out the competition.

This was a long lesson. Take a break and think about the new things you just learned. When you are ready, continue with the next step.

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User comments:

Chris at Aug, 03 '10 11:36
Good advice. And unfortunately you're right, you can't compete with the big names by offering the same service.

And check your wholesale outlet to death, whatever you do. If you leave it to chance, you could end up getting scammed and that's the last thing anyone needs at any time, let alone in the current climate. It's easy enough to check up online, see if there are any negative reviews etc. Contact them, see how they come across to you. If you feel like you wouldn't buy a used car from them, then take your business elsewhere.
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