How to use our supplier directory

Our Directory features fully verified suppliers from multiple supply methods, Wholesale, Dropship, Liquidation. Use the Link hidden: Login to view.

Our directory is extensive and of course constantly being added to as new applications are being approved on a daily basis. However, there are of course times when we may not yet have what someone is looking for. As an added service to our members, you can Link hidden: Login to view with the specifics of what you're looking for and the support team there will do their best to find a resource for you to follow up with, then verify them to ensure they are safe for you to trade with.

Please note, that's not an excuse to get lazy and ask us to do a search of our directory for you. The team is busy and have plenty on our plate and this service is only for those who are unable to find the resource in our directory as a last chance option.

Good luck with the searching!

Hi Mark,

I am new to Salehoo and is having a hard time finding a supplier that actually supply the products shown on Market Research Lab. For example, Market Research Lab will show a certain jewelry item with low competition. Great, let me click on the link "suppliers." But once I am there, the list of suppliers don't actually have that certain type of jewelry shown in Market Research Lab, but rather just a list of general jewelry suppliers. How am I suppose to find suppliers for that specific product, if the list of suppliers is not accurate? Am I doing this wrong? Any advice or tip will help. Thank you!

GM

Hi GM and welcome to the forum,

There is no correlation between the research lab and the directory. The research lab generates results based on raw data provided to us directly from eBay.com. We provide that data for our members to use as a guide if they are unsure where to start in regards to products and we use eBay data because most want to start by selling on eBay.

Our directory features suppliers that have been fully verified by SaleHoo which sell a range of products from various countries, but are not in anyway specific to results provided by the eBay data. So while you may find a verified supplier in the directory that matches a lab result, there is of course no assurance that you will.

Just bare in mind that raw eBay data is fluid, so we could never possibly keep up with the changing data if we were trying to match suppliers to specific lab results. Our verification process can take weeks, so by the time we had verified a supplier to match lab data the data would then be out dated and we would need to be finding new suppliers.

It's just a scenario that couldn't work.

If you are interested in any product that you are unable to find in the directory, just email Link hidden: Login to view with the specifics and the support team will then try their best to find you some supplier leads for you to follow up with.

Cheers

gia.moy wrote:Hi Mark,

I am new to Salehoo and is having a hard time finding a supplier that actually supply the products shown on Market Research Lab. For example, Market Research Lab will show a certain jewelry item with low competition. Great, let me click on the link "suppliers." But once I am there, the list of suppliers don't actually have that certain type of jewelry shown in Market Research Lab, but rather just a list of general jewelry suppliers. How am I suppose to find suppliers for that specific product, if the list of suppliers is not accurate? Am I doing this wrong? Any advice or tip will help. Thank you!

GM

Hello GM/Mark: I am new to Salehoo as well, and I understood Mark's explanation. However, isn't there a better way to find a product than emailing support? How do others find a product? Maybe I am not understanding? Please help. Thank you.

DP

Hi DP,

To search the directory, enter a product name or supplier name into the search bar in the directory and you can narrow down your results by choosing the filters in the menu. I'm only suggesting that you are able to contact support for further assistance if you find that we don't currently have what you are searching for in the directory.

Just bare in mind that the directory constantly changes with new suppliers coming online with us after passing their verification process. So if we don't have a verified supplier for what you're looking for today, we may well have one or more in the verification process, hence it's always an idea to just check with support if you feel the need.

Cheers

Thank you. DP

Hi Chris and welcome to the forum,

Couple of points to cover there for you, but I'll start with the supplier hidden prices one firstly. This one is one of my pet hates, I don't have any explanation as to why suppliers do it, I really don't, to me it is nothing more than a waste of everyone's time. I don't see the point of making someone complete the application, then have someone process the application, only for nothing in many cases.

I know it's frustrating and something SaleHoo is very conscious of, however trying to convince suppliers to be more open with members up front is akin to having teeth pulled in many cases. Despite us suggesting it would streamline business for everyone involved, that advice is simply ignored in many cases.

So we can keep suggesting it, but in reality it is really down to the supplier to create their own terms and conditions.

To your point regarding a price rating, this is something we've also looked at quite closely, but is far more complicated than you may expect. Here are some issues we face, not everyone uses suppliers to sell on eBay, some for example will buy product to sell at market stalls where profit margin is usually much better than on a site like eBay.

So for those sellers, they would rate the price as good. Then you have an eBay seller trying to compete in a hot market, lets say nobile phones for example. On eBay, this market is full of some very big hitters spending lots of cash to buy in stock at the cheapest possible price and then selling at drastically reduced margins to create market domination.

So someone wanting to deal in that market will look at some of the eBay prices and decide that the supplier is too expensive and rate them lowly. Throw into that mix the possibility of loss leaders playing a roll effecting the market, as well as supplier changing their prices at any given time and it's impossible to get an accurate rating in place.

Rating a service is one thing, but rating something like a price that has so many different factors that effect that price is a nightmare. There just isn't a system that could deliver a fair and balanced assessment of prices unfortunately and it's important to use to be as supportive and fair to our suppliers just as much as we are to our members.

You seem to be hitting on all of my pet hates lol

This one is right at the top, poor customer service. I've heard all sorts of excuses as to why some suppliers offer such poor response times, but to me, any supplier that doesn't consider my inquiry valuable enough to reply to in a timely manner simply isn't worth me doing business with.

We've noticed a growing trend with suppliers across the board where email inquiries over the years are beginning to become treated as second class inquiries and not taken all that seriously by many suppliers. I'm quite sure that the majority of email inquires they get turn out to be a waste of their time responding to, but that's what customer service should be all about, responding to customer inquiries.

We can only recommend phone contact or if they provide online chat support, then that option also gets treated as a priority inquiry, as long as it is within their regular reading hours. Unfortunately, while email, as convenient as it is for customers to use, seems to be no longer treated as a priority inquiry by an ever increasing amount of suppliers.

Cheers

Trying to get started drop shipping on ebay. Having a lot of trouble finding a supplier for any niche that has competitive prices on eBay. Seems like all the suppliers you list I would have to cut my price so drastically low and I wouldn't be making any money I don't really see what point is to finding suppliers on salehoo if this is the case. Can Someone please help me understand ? Am I missing something ?

When you sat "niche" markets, can you give an example of a couple. I find that term used quite a lot, but it's often misunderstood and people aren't actually identifying niche markets at all. So one of two things might be happening here, maybe the market is more general; than niche and competition is firm or if it is a genuine niche market, then it could just be a case of finding the right supplier for that market.

All of that aside, you still have to keep everything in perspective with drop shipping. It's a business model that offers lots of benefits, but it's big drawback is usually margin. Unless you essentially find a niche type supplier, most drop shipping margins are always going to be tight, especially on a multi-seller platform like an eBay simply due to the listing, selling and processing fees involved.

To make the most from Drop Shipping, you need to be using a platform with low fees to increase your margin. That's why it's used a lot with people marketing their own websites, it's a perfect supply model to build up a stock profile on your site and make margin because you don't have all the listing and selling fees involved.

A lot of people underestimate just how much those fees on sites like eBay suck out of a seller's profit margin, leaving it very hard to make much from a Drop Ship model on those platforms with most suppliers.

I've always been a fan of using a bundling technique with Drop Shipping, I think that always gives you a strong point of difference in the marketplace, something you really need in an ultra competitive marketplace like an eBay.

Makes sense!! Thanks for the reply.

No problems :)

I just joined Salehoo tonight. My question is this: Is each supplier going to have an additional fee for using their services?
In essence did I just pay $67 for a list of companies that were going to charge me an additional $50 or $XXX a year fee (basically the ones I have looked at you have to pay additional fees to get started)

Welcome to the forum,

Not every supplier does charge a fee, but it's certainly something that is becoming more popular for suppliers to do. You'll find most wholesalers usually won't have any account fees, but it's something that we see more and more Drop Shipping suppliers doing.

chris.cip1 wrote:Greetings,

I'm another newb, I have just joined two days ago. I have been applying with distributors (which I wish they would let me see their prices ahead of time to save me the wasted time of applying) and scouring their websites and I cannot find a product worth selling. When I do find a good product usually their prices are higher than the going rate on eBay/Amazon. I think salehoo should add a price rating to the distributors profile kind of like yelp. It is becoming quite frustrating, any tips for a rookie?

I believe this site is a wate of money. The best prices are not on their website but even when you contact the supplier and give them a high quantity of products the prices are rarely lower then what you could sell them for on Ebay or Amazon. You also need to be careful on what products you buy from here when you sell them on Amazon, especially if the item comes with a warranty. These companies are probably authorized to sell you the product with the warranty but when you sell the item on Amazon the warranty will not be valid for your customer. You would be only able to sell the item "used Like New" I think we are better off finding the products you want to sell and go directly to the manufacturer and try to become an authorized distributor. Good Luck

Hi Michael,

A manufacturer's warranty is completely valid when either selling via a drop-ship model or wholesale model. So long as you are selling a new product, then the manufacturer's warranty is completely valid.

You do how ever need to be aware of the supplier's returns policy when needing to claim on the warranty.

In regards to your idea about networking to deal direct with manufacturers, that of course is a legit course of action and quite possible to do if you structure yourselves legally. That said, while it would depend on the manufacturer in question, most will require very large orders, much larger than a wholesale supplier because you are now essentially dealing as a wholesalers yourselves in this scenario.

The other problem you would need to resolve is the distribution of labor and profit sharing among your group. Who is going to do what work and does everyone get an even share of the profits and so on. It's a legit idea, but it requires lots of thought to put something like that together and have of work effectively.

[quote="fudjj"]Hi GM and welcome to the forum,

There is no correlation between the research lab and the directory.

What is the point of the SaeHoo LAB if you have people signing up under the assumption your site works accurately and will match suppliers with the product they are interested in. This to me is false advertising by SaleHoo. Take down the Lab and give back members some of the membership money they pay SaleHoo if you can not supply a reliable product.
Mick

[quote="fudjj"]When you sat "niche" markets, can you give an example of a couple. I find that term used quite a lot, but it's often misunderstood and people aren't actually identifying niche markets at all.

So how about Salehoo provide the members of its site with Niche market ideas. Get rid of the LAB and replacement with something useful.
Mick

I recently asked SaleHoo for a list of the so called 8000 suppliers it claims it has access to. If we as paying members have access to their 8000 suppliers anyway. Their should be no problem with SaleHoo providing all of us a list of these suppliers. This will save members time using the SaleHoo site, freeing it up for other members to use. Sale Hoo claimed they were unable to supply such a list.

Ok, a list of 8000 suppliers maybe a little over the top to reproduce on the spot. So i gave SaleHoo a a month dead line, they claimed they were unable to do this as well. Bare in mind that the claim made by SaleHoo is that they have indeed got 8000 suppliers for all its members to access. So i made it easier again, asking for a small list of 300 suppliers on any products of thSaleHoo choice. This was also unable to be handed over to me. I have no idea why as again i remind you all, we as paying members apparently have access to atlas 8000 vetted suppliers...

Everytime i use the LAB it seems that a hand full of the same suppliers appear against most products. This is in addition to the apparently common problem of most users not having products and Suppliers matching up. (Which SaleHoo admits has no correlation, this is after paying the membership fee of course).

What are we paying membership for. I get no follow up e-mails or offers of mentorship to ask how I'm going with the process of establishing an online store, wholesale business, drop ship venture. I get generic computer generated responses from i presume a VR in the Philippines. (NOTHING AGAINST THE PHILLIPINES IT IS A GREAT PLACE AND BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE).

Please feel free to make harsh comment of my rant if you disagree. If SaleHoo actually allows it to stay up on the forum. I maybe being unfair, and I welcome all comments to the above. I have found great value in the SaleHoo trading Packages, webinars they have etc to be fair. Their is a disconnect between the training and SaleHoo helping members apply what they are learning real time i feel. Please add your comments. Maybe we can suggest further ideas for SaleHoo management to look into.

Thanks
Mick Gregory.

sorry for the spelling mistakes.
Mick

Hi Mick,

What I've taken from your posts are 3 main points.

1. Lab
2. Lack of support
3. False claims regarding suppliers

Just before I furnish those 3 key points of your disillusionment, let me confirm that this is an open forum for all members. So long as a post does not infringe on forum posting rules, then members are more than welcome to share their opinions, along with most other things.

We most certainly DO NOT censor members opinions purely on the basis of them being an opinion, so your posts being just that, will remain in place.

OK, to the Labs

You make a claim that SaleHoo is somehow marketing that the Labs in integrated with our supplier directory and therefore it is false advertising and they clearly are not integrated. The latest incarnation of the Lab does have some integration with our directory now, however, that only works if we have suppliers in the directory that you are trying to match a product to.

If there are no exact matches, then it will show suggested results that you can then follow up with as a guide.

If you feel that SaleHoo does have misleading marketing then if you would like to pass an example of that on to me I am happy to take that up with admin on your behalf.

Just a footnote to the Labs point, it's under constant development and we always welcome members input on how we can make it better. So you are always welcome to send your feedback on it via the red feedback button and our tech team will most definitely review that.

In regards to SaleHoo offering members money back on their subscription because you don't feel the Labs is worth paying for. The Lab service is provided to members FREE, it is not part of the subscription price. It's not a cheap service for SaleHoo to offer, but SaleHoo absorbs the cost of providing that service to its members.

The idea of then offering you or other members a refund on a free service seems a little bizarre to me, but we seem to have a difference of opinion on that matter.

In regards to of the supplier's list.

Now I have no idea personally of what the current number is, but it does change constantly because if we find a supplier is in breach of our trading policy, then they are removed, Couple that with the fact that we are taking new supplier applications every week and the actual number of suppliers we have at any one time is very fluid.

That said, we don't have any hidden lists that we keep private, all of our verified suppliers are clearly displayed in our supplier's directory, so I'm not really sure what the point of asking for a list actually is. Support is always busy with member inquiries, of course, they can't waste their time making lists when that information is already clearly available for you on the forum.

I don't personally see what possibly service having a list will provide you, but of course you are quite welcome to look through the directory and make your own list if that's what you really want to do.

Now if I've actually missed the point you were trying to make and you feel that we have non-genuine suppliers as part of our directory, then I would ask you to send me the list of those you feel are NOT genuine suppliers and I will personally take that up with admin on your behalf to clarify.

That said, I know the verification process suppliers have to go through to get listed and am completely confident that any supplier listed in our directory is a completely authorised supplier.

To your third point, lack of support.

I don't know what our current membership is, but we're talking around 100,000 at least (I think) Support can't be expected to follow up with everyone to make sure all is going well or if they need advice or help with any matters of concern. They're already busy servicing members who come to them wanting help.

Surely you have to take some responsibility here, if it's help you need, then that's why we have support and this forum, along with our Social Media platforms as well. It's not difficult to get our attention and we're always willing to help as much as we possibly can, all you have to do is ask.

Just to finish off with your idea of us posting a list of niche markets. I'm not sure what the point of that would actually be. Firstly, we would need to do the market research to identify those markets and that itself can take months and then even if we could clearly identify GENUINE niche markets and we made a list of them on the forum, they wouldn't remain niche for very long at all.

What would happen is that members would all jump straight on them and those niche markets would become saturated overnight and then we would get abused for telling people they were niche markets to start with. Not just that, but what about all the members who have done the months or market research and have identified niche markets that are now serving them well?

Do you think they would thank us for destroying their months of hard work by shining a light on their niche for everyone else to then try and take advantage of? I doubt they would be very happy about that at all, to be really honest.

Now I understand we're not going to agree on your points, but I at least hope it gives you another point of view to consider.

I have been using salehoo for several weeks now and have all the issues mentioned above. Cant find suppliers for product or product is more expensive than on amazon or supplier has extra membership fees. Sucks. Waste of time and money.

Hi Suzzy and welcome to the forum,

If you are having trouble finding suppliers for the products you are wanting, you can contact our support team via Link hidden: Login to view and they will do their best to find you some supplier leads that you can follow up on.

In regards to prices being cheaper on Amazon and eBay, that usually comes down to the purchasing model you are using. For example, if you are looking at drop-ship supplier prices and then comparing those prices against sellers on Amazon and eBay who are using a wholesale model or even worse, actual wholesalers themselves using those high traffic platforms to sell public direct, then it can be next to impossible to compete in those markets.

Drop-shipped prices have their place in the market, but you can't go up against wholesale dealers and wholesales themselves and hope to compete using drop-shipping as your model, drop-shipping isn't designed to compete in those markets.

So you really have to be careful what you are comparing to because it can be very misleading if you don't know what you are comparing against.

Mark thank you for your reply, the comment you made about the LAB and the products and Suppliers having no correlation was made by you in another post. Its not a free service at all, I have paid membership to get access I expect to get value for money.

I have provided support with plenty of examples about suppliers not matching the product i have searched for. I get generic responses. "We are aware salehoo has issue with the Lab ETC" I not going over old ground. I have seen plenty of people having the same concerns aswell.

As i mentioned it seems all i get, no matter which product i input into lab is a handful of the same suppliers popping up over and over again. A list of suppliers that salehoo has vetted would save me the trouble of using the lab to research products, which again as you mentioned does not have any correlation between supplier and product...why bother offering the LAB if it is not constructive.

I work during the day, I don't want my time wasted trying to research items to sell with suppliers that have nothing to do with the item. Please advise me of an alternative way to use my salehoo membership to find worthwhile items to sell and suppliers that actually match. Do i approach established members, do i just go onto eBay research wholesale lots and get in contact with suppliers that way circumventing the salehoo directory, as again - i don't get suppliers matching against items I research..

By all means any established members that may be able to provide some guidance please share some tips you may have for those of us just trying to follow your example. Mark if you could provide a more concise game plan for us newbies, feel free to share. Again if i have come off sounding little over the top i apologise for any offence.

Awaiting your reply SaleHoo?

Yes, I am aware that comment was made by me in a previous post in regards to no correlation. However, as I mentioned in my previous post to you that the labs now does have some correlation. As I mentioned, it's evolution is ongoing as the developers continue to develop it and that will continue into the future.

That said, there are going to be some things it just can't-do. For example, If we don't have a verified supplier in the directory for a particular product, then it can't give you an exact match, it will only be able to make suggestions.

The data that is relayed through the labs comes directly from eBay itself, we don't generate that. So we have no way of knowing what those results are going to be ahead of time.

We can only verify suppliers based on their trustworthiness, not on what they sell. So there is no way we can ever get to a point where we will have a supplier for every market trend, that's simply not possible.

The labs needs to be used as it is intended, as a valuable research tool. Not as part of the directory. The directory of suppliers has its own search function.

In regards to this NOT being a free service. All I can do is repeat what I said initially, it is indeed a FREE service. SaleHoo does not charge extra for access to the labs tool. Now perhaps you weren't a member when the labs was first introduced, however, those that were members at the time will remember that when introduced, there was no adjustment to the subscription price for new members, nor was there an extra fee for existing members to use it.

It was provided as a free service to members and continues to remain so!

Now the possibilities are there for the service that the labs can offer to be increased, but the decision was made that it was better to offer what we could for free, rather than offer a more detailed tool that we then had to pass the charges on to members because it's not a cheap service to operate unfortunately.

There is also services like Terapeak that already offer a very detailed research tool, but of course, it's not free either!

I'm happy to try and help you as much as I can, but I'll need some details from you to give me a much better idea.

Are you looking at wholesale, dropship, secondhand or liquidation as your supply method? What marketplaces are you wanting to sell in and what products are you wanting to sell?

Give me a feel for your short term and long term goals in e-commerce and what sort of plans you currently have in place to drive those as well, that will help me get a much better bearing on your direction.

You can PM me that info if you would prefer to keep that quiet.

Cheers