Question about Brands/Am I doing this right?

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I was hoping someone could help to clarify this for me. I have three niches and am getting three stores set up ( bought my domains, keyword researched, sourced, picked my theme, etc). Two of the niches that I picked don't necessarily have popular brands, and if someone wants a product in that niche they really won't sit at their computer and look for a specific brand.
However, one of my niches has brands, and a lot of popular brands. The customers that know what they want in that niche will likely search for brand. I starting looking at some of the brands and was finding "dealer" sections on the manufacturer websites, etc.
So my question is this (I will try to keep it as general as possible). What do you all do when there are major brands ( not carried in stores to boot) that you would like to carry on your website?
In this niche, I have found a ton of products that I can dropship and quite a wealth of dropshipping products. But when you go and look at the products- that is all they are, just products with no brand. So lets say my niche was turtleneck sweaters ( it isnt). I know Gap, New York and Company, Guess, are all big brands that sell those and customers will likely search by those brands. I would like to see some big brands on my site. But while researching dropshippers of turtleneck sweaters, I was finding stuff that doesn't even have a brand. They look instead like this: Woman's Turtleneck Sweater Purple XLarge. No brand mentioned.
So, what do you guys do when you KNOW you are going to want to hit some of those brands up?
Do you just go and put some of the off brands on your site and then contact the brands and see if they will allow you to dropship? Is that what those sites mean by "dealer"?
Basically, I don't want to sell junk is what I am saying. But to get started, it looks like I am going to... well.... have alot of junk items without brands on my site. I am assuming when I contact the bigger companies, they are going to want to see my website so I can't just not have anything on there.
How do you all get around selling junk- unbranded items?
I even looked for dropshipper programs that may carry these brands and welp no. You go be a dealer with the manufacturer or you don't get into the program.

Any clarification on this would be greatly appreciated! I just don't want to have an entire site that looks like this:
Womans Xlarge purple turtleneck
Womans Small pink turtleneck.
I would rather it say:
Gap Turtlenecks
Guess Turtlenecks

Etc.
Any advice?
#brands or am #question
  • Profile picture of the author kurtbai
    Hi, branded products are usually harder to find, and if you do find them, you won't have decent profit margins from the dropship or wholesale suppliers, unless you purchase bulk from shelf pulls, returns, overstocks... For example, A&F polo shirts are extremely hot, but you won't be able to find these from almost any dropshipper, because the company is extremely strict with their distribution channels... If you do find one, mostly there are fake. This may differ in your niche... but in my opinion, there are advantages in selling unbranded products: lower wholesale prices, higher profit margins, little competition, and no restrictions from the brand owners... if you don't mind, tell us your niche, maybe we could help more. cheers.
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  • Profile picture of the author pavv
    You will find that a lot of big brands have their distribution locked down tight. This is how they keep their products exclusive and expensive. If they opened it up to people like you and me it would suddenly create enormous competition which would drive down prices and make the product more easily accessible and therefor less exclusive.

    You may notice with many designer type brands that you mention that they have their own retail stores so they might not even sell to distributors. Think Gucci, Rolex, Luis Vuitton, etc.

    It's not all bad news though. What happens is that this type of agressive protection of branding essentially makes another tier in the market. Do you think people looking to buy a $60,000 Rolex would also consider a $100 Seiko watch? The target audience is very different which sort of means you're not really competing. These two watches might as well be entirely different products because they do not cause competition to each other.

    To answer your question there is actually nothing wrong with selling non-branded items - there is a still a market for them. Also consider the advangtages that kurtbai mentions in his above comment "lower wholesale prices, higher profit margins, little competition, and no restrictions from the brand owners".

    You just need to determine your unique selling position up front and communicate that clearly to your customers. If you're selling unbranded stuff you want to be clearly communicating your USP to your customers eg. "High quality turtlenecks at factory direct prices."

    Another thing you have to get past is that not everyone thinks the same as you (not you personally, I mean as resellers we need to open up our thinking). You might personally only buy brand name products and therefor assume that a non-branded store would not sell very well, when in reality there are millions of people who would happily buy non-branded products.

    I hope this has helped sorry I went on a bit of a roll there!

    Cheers,
    Peter
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  • Profile picture of the author kurtbai
    I totally agree with pavv, sometimes unbranded products can make wonders, just make sure your audience is not brand savvy... not like luxury watches, or guitars, brands matter in these niches, but in niches like general fashion, not all buyers are looking for branded products, sometimes they are just looking for products that fit their personal style, taste, and price range... there's a huge market for niches like this
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  • Profile picture of the author Audarah
    Thank you both for your help. I wont give away my niche here, but I was kind of stuck in the thinking mode that no one would buy if they didnt have a particular brand but its not a brand pertinent niche so I can get away with it
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