Need assistance finding a good dropshipping wholesaler

Hi everyone! My name is Michael and I am the owner of an online fashion boutique for men, women, and children. I am looking forward to having my site up and running by the beginning of 2014, but have an issue that I need assistance with. I cannot seem to find a decent wholesaler that allows for single item dropshipping. This poses a very big issue to me because my store is completely online and I, at this time, do not plan on opening a store, therefore need to be able to ship from the warehouse directly to the customer. If anyone has any suggestions for good wholsalers that also have single item dropshipping in the US, I would greatly appreciate any help offered.
Thanks,
Mike

Hi Mike,

Unfortunately it is hard to find wholesalers who will dropship as they are geared to volume sales, not individual sales. If you are wanting to do item by item shipping, dropshipping suppliers would be your best bet, steer clear of wholesalers.

Cheers

Hi guys,

I am new to Salehoo, and I too have had a similar problem. My challenge has been to find a good dropshipping supplier/provider/platform who is:

1. Reputable,
2. Has good prices from which I can make a profit with good margins.
3. One who also provides great integration, or the tools to automate inventory management, automate product import/export, price management, even possibly order management.

Because those automation tools can help you scale up quickly, while saving time to focus on other things in your business.

So my challenge has been to find this kind of platform at a really affordable price. Marc, does that kind of platform exist, whether here at Salehoo or outside?

Tyvm for the replies :) I guess I will have to look into just dropshippers then. My question is this now: Does it matter if they are not in the US. And if not, which dropshippers are good to go with in the field of fashion?

Hi TYVM

In regards to where dropship suppliers are located, it's not so much of a big deal. The two key things you will need to be aware of is shipping time and shipping costs. Those two things that have some potential to impact your business.

In regards to the best suppliers, well that comes down to working out who is best for you. Some prefer suppliers with no upfront account fees, some prefer suppliers with great customer service, some prefer suppliers based on price alone. You have to work out what's important for your business and then find a supplier that fits that criteria.

marketstardirect wrote:Hi guys,

I am new to Salehoo, and I too have had a similar problem. My challenge has been to find a good dropshipping supplier/provider/platform who is:

1. Reputable,
2. Has good prices from which I can make a profit with good margins.
3. One who also provides great integration, or the tools to automate inventory management, automate product import/export, price management, even possibly order management.

Because those automation tools can help you scale up quickly, while saving time to focus on other things in your business.

So my challenge has been to find this kind of platform at a really affordable price. Marc, does that kind of platform exist, whether here at SaleHoo or outside?

Hi Authur,

This is really hard to give a yes or no answer to as it all really depends on your own perspective. For example, something like good prices. What are you comparing their prices against?

If you are comparing a dropship price against, let's say an ebay seller who is buying in large wholesale volume to get the best possible price, then selling at a heavily reduced price to maintain their market control as tightly as possible, then you're not comparing apples with apples.

See my point?

I think this is where most people get into trouble, they look at a price and then go straight into ebay and compare it, not really knowing anything about the supplier they are comparing the price with. The simple answer with dropship vs wholesale in regards to price in a market like ebay, when stacked up product vs product, dropship stands virtually no chance whatsoever. That just comes down to basic business fundamentals, those that invest more into business by way of stock, get better prices that then allow them to supply at much more competitive prices.

I've written about bundles being an avenue that dropshippers may want to consider, but the easiest way to compete on ebay or sites like it, stay away from trying to compete against sellers buying in volume. So that will usually take car of all the hot selling items, that's dominated by wholesale products at reduced margins because sellers are making their money through turn over.

There are areas that aren't dominated by big turnover wholesale products, in my opinion they are the product areas any dropshipper should focus their attention on.

In regards to reputation, then I would say that is absolutely possible (here in SaleHoo or outside) But in regards to other points you inquire about, then they are really grey areas, very subjective and very difficult for me to comment on. with any sort of informative response.

Marc, I agree with you that when it comes to comparing prices on ebay with sellers who many times get their inventory at wholesale vs dropshipping doesn't even compete. Having seen that on ebay, I realized they must be buying wholesale with large volumes to sell at those prices. I do see your other point about bundles and focusing on those areas where as you said, the big turnover wholesale products don't dominate.

On my other point, I have been looking for a dropship supplier, directory who have a platform I can use to auto populate products on to a shopping cart. For example, you find products that you want to sell on your website, but you don't want to copy/paste each and every single detail of a product manually onto your site. I have done that before and it was draining. So a dropship supplier/directory that provides automated inventory management, that can push those products you want to your site, update product inventory count, prices, etc is really beneficial

I know there are some out there that can do that plus also automate order management. Basically, transmitting your orders that your site has generated onto the supplier automatically without you doing anything.

But what I am most interested is one that atleast does automated inventory management, that can provide store integration with a dropship supplier to automatically update product inventory to your site and at a really affordable price. And as I said earlier, that has a good reputation as a supplier.

That's why I was also asking if Salehoo provides such an automated product management / store integration, and even automated order management? Or do you have to manually submit orders to your supplier.

In regards to suppliers providing that sort of automation, some do, but I don't know of any that I could recommend. I think just posing that question directly to suppliers would be your best bet, if they don't make it clear on their website of course

In regards to if we provide an automated service, are you asking in regards to our general directory to for our SaleHoo Stores platform?

fudjj wrote:In regards to suppliers providing that sort of automation, some do, but I don't know of any that I could recommend. I think just posing that question directly to suppliers would be your best bet, if they don't make it clear on their website of course

In regards to if we provide an automated service, are you asking in regards to our general directory to for our SaleHoo Stores platform?

Yes I am. Do you provide such a service. Thanks and happy new year.

We do provide CSV for product uploads to our Stores format, but not a fully automated service as you are speaking of.

HNY!