How to use suppliers on SaleHoo

I just joined SaleHoo after reading outstanding reviews online. I'm so eager to get my hands wet, but I don't know where to begin. And well, I'm kinda lost. My questions are in regards to selling on eBay.

I've a personal account where I sold things around the house and it has become addicting. Do I open an eBay store? Then from there, do I just search on Salehoo for a supplier of the merchandise I wish to sale? How would I list the items? How would I ship the items? There's so many questions. I'm both nervous and excited.

I browsed the forums for similar topics, but they're outdated. I would love to have help setting up my first listing and making my first sale.

Thanks in advance,

Carlos

Are you looking to purchase wholesale items or are you looking to dropship?

I'm looking to start with drop shipping.

Hi Carlos and welcome to the forum

It is exciting just starting out, but can be confusing. In regards to getting an eBay store straight away, it's not something I would personally recommend, it's just an added expense for anyone just starting out and when dropshipping, you really need to focus on keeping the costs down to an absolute minimum. So my advise would be to use the standard eBay listing format.

In regards to what to do next, it's far to simple to say that you just have to jump into the directory, find a dropshipper and start selling. You're entering a very competitive market, and I mean VERY COMPETITIVE MARKET!

The biggest mistake anyone makes in this business is underestimating just how competitive it is, they get frustrated and then give up before they even get a chance to really start. I'm not trying to pour cold water on you lol, but just trying to temper your excitement with a little dose of market reality lol

Imagine this, you go and set up a stall at a weekend market selling product X.You get the stall all set up and then look around and see that you are right next to another stall selling the exact same thing, then the next, then the next, then the next........ as far as the eye can see, everyone selling the exact same thing as you and all the customers are walking past everyone's stall choosing who to buy from.

Would you pay money to have a stall there in that market?

Well when you sell on eBay, that's the type of scenario that you are faced with and that should give you an idea of just how high that mountain can be to climb. It's not a quick sprint to the top in this business, especially with dropshipping, it's a seriously long winding journey full off steep drop offs that are around every corner.

If you've gone through some old posts, the one thing that may be starting to stick out is the word research. It doesn't matter how long you've been in this business, just starting or a 25 year veteran, research is what it's all about. The minute you lose sight of that, is the time your competitors will take the advantage and you're dead in the water!

Selling some stuff from around the house is a great idea to get started, but now you are looking at selling the exact same products, in the exact same place, through the exact same supply method, then thousands are doing from all over the world ......... market stalls all the same, as far as the eye can see.......

You need to know your market before you even think of finding a supplier. You need to identify product, competitors, price points, suppliers and so on. Even after that, you then need to work out how to make you stand out from all the other stalls and with dropshipping being so competitive, price usually isn't an option. So you have to start working on building a brand, create an online environment where customers feel comfortable spending their money and so on and that's often one of the hardest parts of all.

Use that excitement to shoot yourself into the research and get started, just temper it with reality and try not to move too quickly before you ahve all the building blocks in place to give yourself the best possible chance and anytime you need any help, just shout out, that's what we're here for :)

could you please elaborate the research a bit?
i think i found my niche which is pretty much flooded but when i started sniffing around i saw that every niche is flooded :) so i wanted to go with the thing that im most comfortable with. i have been looking around e-bay about prices and such but what else should i research about?

Hi Liron,

When doing a business plan there is a simple marketing exercise you can do as the great starting point, it's called a S.W.O.T analysis.

S - STRENGTHS
W - WEAKNESSES
O - OPPORTUNITIES
T - THREATS

The idea being to list what you see as your strengths. These can be anything such as passion, determination, relevant experience and so on, absolutely anything that you can identify with that would be a strength in moving forward in the business. Weakness, pretty much the opposite to your strengths of course, what things do you see as your weaknesses.

Opportunities, these are where you see the opportunities in the business, could be developing your own site, taking on a weekend market stall, could even be getting involved with a new product niche and so on. Threats, as it says, anything you can identify as a threat to your success. Now of course competition is usually at the top of this list, but consider everything, such as if you are getting involved with a new niche product, how long do you anticipate it being before other sellers or similar products come into or onto the market and so on.

The more you open your mind and think outside the box with this exercise, the more things you will be able to identify for each category and the more you identify, the more you can then work on.

Strengths are of course positives, these are things that will serve you well and things you need to build on. Weaknesses, not so good of course, so once they have been identified, you have to start working on processes to eliminate those, and if you are successful at that, you will then be able to add those to your strengths and build on those.

Opportunities, the more opportunities you can identify the possibilities you have for success and the of course any threats you identify need to be neutralized as much as possible to keep those at an absolute minimum, but the most importing thing is that you are aware of them!

Now when just starting out, I suggest doing this exercise once a month. Keep a record so you can chart how it is all forming over a 6 month period and then maybe do it every 3 months. It's a great way to give yourself ideas of the areas in business where you need to focus the most and the areas where you are well covered. As I said, open your mind when doing this exercise, think outside the square and write down anything you can think of as relevant in each category.

Some times you can fill out categories quite quickly, some times it can take days, maybe weeks. There's no time limit, it's all about getting it on paper so you can identify with where you are and build a plan on how to get where you need to be and that of course will then lead you down the path of all the areas that you need to research.

Cheers