You had a great idea when you decided to open a home-based Internet retail business. You became a “power seller,” as people in
online retail business world call you. Your goal is to move tons of merchandise through Web auction sites and classifieds services without ever leaving comfort of your home office. Drop shipping gives you opportunity to accomplish your dreams and more. The sky is limit if you know how to get your business off ground.Drop shipping can launch your business into successful orbit, but it isn’t rocket science. With this unique way of doing business, you enlist services of a wholesale merchandise company. The wholesale company takes care of stockpiling and storing of your product. It even covers shipping and handling charges when one of your customers orders an item.
This means you don’t have to rent thousands of square feet to warehouse your inventory, and you’re free from liability that comes with direct delivery to your customers. Your only expenses are membership fee of your particular wholesaler, along with fees and percentages you lose to advertising and auctioning online. If you play your cards right with these fees, you can build yourself a very cost-effective—and most importantly, profitable—home-based business.
Experienced online retailers have learned tricks of trade to do just that. Here are key secrets that they, your competitors, don’t want you to know. These three tips will stack deck in your favor, helping you to grow your clientele while avoiding pitfalls of doing ecommerce.
Get sold on your wholesaler. Nowadays, wholesalers are a dime a dozen, so don’t settle on first one that comes your way. Let wholesalers compete for your business, instead of other way around. Many companies may offer specials to new prospective retailers. They may waive minimum order requirements, credit check, and prepayments if you sign up with them. Top-notch wholesalers could also offer international delivery or special net payment options. Avoid high expenses at get-go by taking advantage of such specials, and turn a profit a lot quicker.
Sniff out whole-scammers. For every honest wholesaler looking to build a successful relationship with you, there’s a crook out there looking to do nothing but build his bank account at your expense. Avoid any wholesaler, for instance, who demands you pay an advance fee before you sign up with them. Be wary of wholesalers who claim to have thousands of items in their selection. These might not be wholesalers at all, but middlemen who are trying to bluff you. Instead of actually stocking these thousands of products, they actually buy them from a wholesaler, or another middleman, and resell them to you at a jacked up price, thereby cutting into your profits.
