Finding wholesalers/Dropshippers

16 replies
Hi, I am looking to import something and see if I can sell it for a profit. I am a newby to importing/drop shipping so any advice will be great. Can anyone recommend any suppliers, I would like to import an Apple iPad for starters.

Regards
Jannes
#finding
  • Profile picture of the author Silas Hart
    Originally Posted by ProfJannes View Post

    Hi, I am looking to import something and see if I can sell it for a profit. I am a newby to importing/drop shipping so any advice will be great. Can anyone recommend any suppliers, I would like to import an Apple iPad for starters.

    Regards
    Jannes
    You weren't kidding about the newby part

    To make things short, don't expect to resell iPads. If anything, try to do something along the lines of finding broken ones, find someone who can fix them for cheap, and resell them and hope Apple doesn't catch you.

    Your question is too broad for anyone (the few) on here who have experience in dealing with suppliers and import/export to be able to point you in any kind of direction.
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  • Profile picture of the author singhavn
    Try thewholesaleforums.co.uk which is the community of wholesale suppliers,distributors,dropshippers and buyers from around the world.
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    • Profile picture of the author Dave Rodman
      Banned
      ***I just reposted this because I typed this out in another thread. PS. You couldn't sell IPADS even if you wanted to.***

      I've seen some posts here that asked about dropshipping/importing/starting a store. Here are my tips in case you are interested. I'll start with the ones that seem to come up more.

      Finding Suppliers--This seems to be the biggest mystery surrounding starting online stores. People talk about suppliers like they are super-secret, super-exclusive, and their default mode is to NOT do business with you. Remember, your money is green! And also remember, most of their customers are likely small businesses as well...so it's not like they're dealing with Walmart, Best Buy, Target, and then YOU.

      Start with the market you want to enter. Assess the competition. And then look for suppliers...a few tips for finding them.

      a) Find the product you want to sell and call the manufacturer to ask for distributors.
      b) Avoid the words "Wholesale" when doing searches. Opt for "distributor".
      c) You want to deal with companies that work ONLY with resellers. "Trade Only" is what you're looking for. Retail shops with wholesale prices are not distributors.
      d) Use McCrae and other business directories to find suppliers. Beware, the search features on those kinda suck.
      e) Definitely look for trade shows. And you don't even have to go to them..just find the websites and look at the exhibitors list. If it sounds like a wholesaler, look for their website. Remember, they aren't necessarily in the business of selling to the public so their websites usually aren't optimized.

      Finding Dropshippers--This is an even bigger "secret" that most people don't realize. Most people start backwards. They find dropshippers and then choose from their products. BIG MISTAKE. First find the suppliers, real suppliers, AND THEN you ask them if they dropship after you establish a little rapport. These companies do not want to deal with Ebay sellers so don't lead with those questions. Tell them you are a retail operation, tell them you're interesting in purchasing from them, and then ask for a catalog and price list. BOOM. Most WILL charge a dropship fee of $5 or so, but that's the price you pay.

      And for the record, I am in a number of markets. All my suppliers dropship...ALL OF THEM. And these suppliers are the leaders in that market. And guess what? None of them are listed in the WWB directory or Saleshoo. I'm sure you can guess why.

      A Couple Sneaky Tricks:

      1) A VERY simple way to determine competition is this. Find the leader in the market and place an order. Wait a couple weeks or a month, place another order. Most shopping cart software is sequential and to see how many orders they took over that period, just take the difference.

      2) If you suspect your competition dropships and you wanna know their sources, just order the product from them. Get the return address and then do a reverse search on the address. Simple.


      More Nuts/Bolts stuff:

      Evaluating Keywords--Most people know to do this already so I won't get into it. But obviously, you're looking for more buying keywords.

      Evaluating Competition--Again, same thing here. The good news is that with e-commerce stores, most people DO NOT spend much time on SEO. So if you do it, and do it consistently, then you'll be far ahead.

      1) More than 15 products? Get a real shopping cart. There are TONS of good ones out there. I personally like X-cart, Shopsite, or Yahoo Stores. People can probably name tons of other decent ones. But if you have a lot of products, you don't want to mess with something like 1shoppingcart where all you're getting is a "buy" button. WAY WAY WAY too hard to manage.

      2) Design Matters---Think about it, you're getting someone to pull out their card. Trust matters. And plus, the bar has been raised in the last several years. Spend the $1-$2K and get a nice design.

      3) Use Your IM Skills---Little things like upsells, email marketing, save a sale scripts, coupons, etc are all the equivalent of printing money. You would be amazed at how effectively these things work. In almost every market i'm in, I have a free PDF that I gave away that opts in the prospect. And every month, I send out a monthly deal that is exclusive to my list. This is ontop of email blasts I do. Easy stuff.

      4) Work with your suppliers---Suppliers have specials every month. Pay attention to them and take advantage. Last month, one of my suppliers had a "Buy 2, get 1 free" deal on a $300 product. Needless to say, I took full advantage and sold them for cost in order to cash in on the free product. They do this stuff all the time so you have to pay attention.

      5) Try and use your own shipping account---This is a BIG hidding profit center. UPS has "stated rates" for anyone with an account. THe more volume you do, the better customer you become. And when you're a good customer, you get rebates. With UPS, it's not tough to get 25% discounts on everything you ship once you start doing some volume. So you charge your customer the stated rate and you essentially make 25% on shipping costs. Or test just lowering shipping prices. Either way, lots of options.

      6) Work with suppliers part 2---Just like affiliate managers, sales reps have the ability to work with you. Set a target of sales to hit before your dropship charges are waived. Say, do $1k per week in purchases and they'll waive your fee. Or just ask for better pricing...they CAn do that. Especially if you're highlighting it in an email blast to your customers.

      7) Market Smart---Do you have a dropship fee? Well, the easiest way to combat that is by increasing the order value in order to make it less significant. So make some compelling offers as an upsell. For instance, if you're selling Camcorders (not recommended) and you'll incur a $5 dropship fee. Take the most popular other product to go along with it, like a carrying case, discount it (but leave $5 profit) and then offer it as an exclusive upsell. That will absorb your dropship fee.

      8) Use Coupons Smart---If your average order size is $20, then give people a coupon for orders OVER $25. You want the order size to increase.

      9) Don't worry about buying from China until you actually are selling something. You sell products first, improve margins later.
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      • Profile picture of the author ProfJannes
        Regarding the importing of Apple iPads, can anyone maybe give me a little more on why not to try and resell them ?

        Finding a niche, how does one find a out about the competition? If one looks at the suppliers, how do you get the best information from the suppliers?
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        • Profile picture of the author ProfJannes
          HiDave, thank you for your post on my question. I hope you do not mind me asking a few questions:

          I am trying to import a Apple iPad and sell it to someone, to make a profit. I found manufacturers on Alibaba.com which states it is the real thing, can I trust this?

          If I want to import branded products, must I go through the 'Brand' company, or can I get it from Alibaba.com?

          Hop eyou do not mind answering my questions.

          Jannes
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          • Profile picture of the author suemax
            Originally Posted by ProfJannes View Post

            HiDave, thank you for your post on my question. I hope you do not mind me asking a few questions:

            I am trying to import a Apple iPad and sell it to someone, to make a profit. I found manufacturers on Alibaba.com which states it is the real thing, can I trust this?

            If I want to import branded products, must I go through the 'Brand' company, or can I get it from Alibaba.com?

            Hop eyou do not mind answering my questions.

            Jannes
            I suspect that you MAY need to learn a little more about how the branded goods market works. This is not an IM "learning" - it is all about buying and selling.

            Most if not all branded goods have a closely-policed list of "official suppliers". This is a very key way which they use to control (a) prices and (b) counterfeiting. "If you aren't offered this from one of our official suppliers (shown on our site), then it is NOT a real X".
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  • Profile picture of the author tfos4941
    You cannot buy Ipad from someone on alibaba, guarnteed they are copies or more than likely dont exist. You can only buy new ipads from Apple distributors. And there is hardly any profit to be made.

    Maybe you should look into selling spares and accessories for the ipad? New batteries, covers all that kind of stuff. This stuff is much easier to get hold of and you will be able to mkae some money.
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  • Profile picture of the author sloanjim
    It's impossible. You cannot get ipads anywhere but Apple and you have to be a registered seller. If you see cheap one Ebay/Alaibab etc..it's knoock off/cloned and your bizz might last a month tops...

    Regarding the importing of Apple iPads, can anyone maybe give me a little more on why not to try and resell them ?
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  • Profile picture of the author rising_sun
    Banned
    I suggest you to keep ur eyes on - dropshipaccess.com, shopster.com and drop-ship.net
    Hope u will get solution there.
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    • Profile picture of the author GlobalTrader
      It is very doubtful you will be able to 'legally' import a brand name item like Apple's IPad. The big manufacturers have exclusive agreements with importer/distributors in just about every country of the world.

      GlobalSources (GS) provides a group of 18 free electronic trade magazines that are updated each month. GS does a cursory background check to verify the suppliers before they allow them to have their merchandise published in their magazines.

      GS also has a series of paid trade magazines so don't get those confused with the free ones they offer.

      I am not sure of the rules regarding posting links here so if you want a link to their free ones, just PM me.
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      GlobalTrader

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      • Profile picture of the author Daniel J
        I agree with what was already said. Apple has a $100,000 minimum first time purchase. Do you have $100,000 to start up? If so, go for it, but the competition will be insane! You're better off finding a "niche." I would HIGHLY recommend Worldwide Brands (google it. It's the first site to come up) Read over ALL of their highly valuable FREE ebooks and information. I learned a TON from them and 3 years later I am doing business at home full time supporting a family of 4 ( PLUS A dog and 2 cats
        Seriously check them out and find out what online selling is all about!
        Daniel J.
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        • Profile picture of the author Mikee17
          Originally Posted by Daniel J View Post

          I agree with what was already said. Apple has a $100,000 minimum first time purchase. Do you have $100,000 to start up? If so, go for it, but the competition will be insane! You're better off finding a "niche." I would HIGHLY recommend Worldwide Brands (google it. It's the first site to come up) Read over ALL of their highly valuable FREE ebooks and information. I learned a TON from them and 3 years later I am doing business at home full time supporting a family of 4 ( PLUS A dog and 2 cats
          Seriously check them out and find out what online selling is all about!
          Daniel J.
          I agree Daniel above. I've personally know Chris Malta of WorldWideBrands for nearly a decade. Very honest, trustworthy, and has a great product.

          They have a membership where you can find just about anything you want and have it dropshipped.

          Just be sure to check eBay "street prices" against the wholesale price.

          Also, pick odd-ball , non-commodity items so you lessen your competition.

          Another great source is to look for manufacturers and distributors directly at ThomasNet.com

          I've sold over 1500 refurbished dropshipped dehumidifiers on eBay. My source wasn't on anyone's list. I had to explain the concept of dropshipping to him! LOL :-)

          The result so I had no competition and made a KILLING.

          Refurbished, scratched & dented, even broken items sell VERY well on eBay.
          You can try finding local companies that get customer returns that are missing a screw, scratched, or has some other minor problem that doesn't affect the functioning of the item. For example, my brother picked up a bunch of scratched electrical panels from a company that couldn't sell them to their professional electricians, but for the do-it-yourselfer home guy they were perfect!

          You gotta be VERY careful about back-orders on eBay. That's when you sell the item but then your supplier is out of stock! ACK!! That's a scary thing. Check out the ebook called "12 Killer Dropship SECRETS For eBay Sellers". It's a classic "street smart" ebook on how to avoid the common problems with dropshipping

          ...Mikee17

          Founder: AuctionTNT.com and PlatinumPowerSeller.com
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  • Profile picture of the author Recession_Proof
    Yes Dave Rodman and FaJeeb are absolutely correct on this ProfJannes. It is almost impossible to get Apple products wholesale. It can be done, but it actually isn't worth it.

    Remember don't get caught up in mainstream hype.

    Yeah we all know iPads and Macbooks are sexy!

    Guess what? So do the crooks on Alibaba, DHGate and the like.

    Know what else? They troll the WF and other forums looking to get fresh $$$ meat for the grinder.

    I still think about how when I first started dropshipping. I lost 5 figures to some $hitbird in China. He is probably still living off my money.

    The name of the site was www.iphone3gsupplier.com.

    Long story short I wish I had found this ahead of time:

    Shifty Supplier iPhone3gsupplier.com - The Wholesale Forums

    PLENTY of other products out there to sell. Try pushing netbooks or even laptops for that matter they will always be in demand, so will parts. Also sooner or later you may or may not want to try software dropshipping. Avoid it, that is all I have to say. Good luck there are gems out there.
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  • Profile picture of the author Furyx2
    I know one thing you can do is just buy truckloads of random stuff. You probably won't get any Ipads, but you'll get more than what you paid for... you just have to have the energy to sort and ship all the items to buyers.
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  • Profile picture of the author aawarrior
    If you do get an to sell an ipad... its probably not a ipad. Its an epad.
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    Asanda Madikane

    Get paid to giveaway free stuff. Who says no to free stuff. See how I get 20+ leads a week. Selling Nothing. That Free Thing 4uu

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  • Profile picture of the author marketwarrior06
    Banned
    i am not very much experienced in this field but i can say that you have to face a huge competition in this field. so choose your product very carefully before import. OK? there are thousands of importers who have imported good products but is not getting good profit. so be careful.
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