Are you about to launch a new online store and just looking for products to sell? Or are you looking for ways to broaden your already existing store’s selection? Choosing a dropshipping supplier partner for your business would definitely worth it! Why choose them to cooperate with? What to consider when picking a new partner? Read further to learn about it!
First of all, let’s take a quick look at what dropshipping is. It is a business model for online merchants. So that a retailer can sell products they don’t have to invest money in physical product stock. Traditionally, the retailer’s dropshipping supplier partner will deliver the product directly to the customer who just made an order. The retailer doesn’t have to deal with logistics, they will not have to pay for a warehouse. They will have virtual product stock and will fill their online store with their dropshipping supplier partner’s product data.
The customer pays to the retailer, and the retailer pays to the supplier. The income of the online store owner will be the difference between the product’s wholesale/dropshipping price and the retail price in the retailer’s store.
It is not possible to open and maintain an online store without any kind of investment, for completely free even if the retailer is working with dropshipping supplier partners. Of course, the money they have to spend on the business will be less with dropshipping than with having big product stocks initially. However, though the retailer can save money on logistics and stock, there will be other costs like monthly subscriptions of the ecommerce platform they use, applications’ fees, operating costs, marketing costs, and many more.
Content
- What to Consider When Choosing a Dropshipping Supplier Partner?
- How to Work with a Dropshipping Supplier Partner?
- Where Can You Find Dropshipping Suppliers?
What to Consider When Choosing a Dropshipping Supplier Partner?
When you are about to choose a dropshipping supplier partner for your business there are many factors you must consider in order to find the best company as a source of products you want to sell. It is important to search for every important detail, and not start a business with lacking crucial information. Let’s see what factors you must consider when choosing a dropshipping supplier partner.
1. Pick a Real Supplier
Pick a dropshipping supplier partner who is a real supplier with their own products. Check information about the company on the internet, on their website, read details about them everywhere, talk with them. Make sure they are not just a store that is actually the fifth reseller of that product adding the fifth markup on the price.
2. Warehouse Close to You for Short Delivery
When you are choosing a dropshipping supplier partner it is important to pick a company that has its warehouse close to your location and especially to your target audience’s location. Like this, you can offer quick delivery to your customers. They want to receive the products they ordered “right now” so if you pick a supplier who provides 2-3 weeks long shipping time then there is only a low chance that your business can stay being successful in the long run. Do not forget to always check if the supplier’s shipping conditions meet your needs.
3. Work with Only a Few, or One Supplier
Why do we say this if with dropshipping everything is so easy and it would be possible to get products from numerous suppliers from anywhere in the world? You can decide to run a store using the dropshipping model (a) if your online store is new and you don’t have any products yet, (b) if you have your own products in your own warehouse and you are looking for a way to broaden your product selection, and (c) if you are already working with other suppliers and you want to sell more kind of products to your customers.
If there are more sources from where products can arrive at customers then it can easily happen that the customer will order three products and these items will be from three different sources. For example, from your own warehouse, and from two different dropshipping supplier partners’ warehouses. There will be three different shipping times, fees, conditions and you have to merge them into one. You can set and show only one kind of delivery condition on your site.
What is the problem with the aforementioned example? The customer will receive three packages on three different days, and after the arrival of the first item, he will go to you with a complaint message that two other items are missing. There is a solution for this. However, if you really want all products to arrive directly to the customer from the supplier, you have to make sure the items can be shipped from only one warehouse. The best solution for this is to pick only one dropshipping supplier partner.
4. Ask for the Products to Arrive at Your Place
Do not worry. You can still enjoy the magic of dropshipping. If you do not want to work with only one dropshipping supplier partner but more, then you need to make compromises in the interests of your customers. You probably don’t want it to happen that a customer receives more packages on more days in different ways even if the items belonged to one order. So what can you do? One solution is to work with only one dropshipping supplier partner, or to work with more of them but ask for the products to arrive at your place first.
You do not need a warehouse and you do not need to stock products in bulk. The dropshipping supplier partner will ship only those products your customer has just ordered. Your living room or garage will be enough to store those few items. You can allow the items to wait for each other, you can pack them in one box. Moreover, you can attach a tiny gift and a greeting card to it. Choose local suppliers that can offer quick delivery so if you will ship the items to the customer from your place the delivery time can still stay short.
5. There Should be Market Demand for Your Products
When choosing a dropshipping supplier partner you need to make sure there is a demand, need, or potential interest for the products you wish to sell. Offer products that you have an interest in, that are related to for example one of your hobbies. Also do not forget the fact that without demand on the market selling will be tough. Furthermore, it is also a must to have high-quality products. If you want, you can order sample products at your place to check them before actually starting selling them.
6. All Technical Solutions Are Available
When you are about to kickstart an online store you need to decide if you want to develop a whole new system and site with your developers, or you will build your store on an e-commerce platform. In both cases, you have to make sure you can easily upload the supplier’s product data into your online store, and that you can access daily automated pricing and inventory quantity updates, and order data synchronization.
For this, you will probably have to use an ecommerce application, software. If you are running your online store on for example Shopify, BigCommerce, Wix, Ecwid by Lightspeed, KMO Shops, or Shoprenter you can choose the app Syncee to find products, suppliers and to automate the main product management processes.
7. Speak with the Supplier
Before you start working with a dropshipping supplier partner, you should talk with them before start selling their products even if it is a piece of cake to upload their products into your online store in a few clicks using the right application. If you have any questions about the products, shipping, guarantee, or anything, send the company a message or call them to avoid tough situations in the future.
8. Products on Your Audience’s Language
When choosing a dropshipping supplier partner you need to make sure the product details are available in your target audience’s language. You can find many suppliers whose products could be great for your business and even the shipping conditions are great, however, it can happen that the products are not available in the language your customers speak.
In this case, you can ask the supplier if they have product data available in more languages, or you can translate the titles and descriptions and other details yourself, or ask someone to do it. If neither of these is a good solution for you, you have to choose another dropshipping supplier partner. Here you can also see that working with a local supplier is important.
9. Reliable Service, Great Customer Support
It is also important to work with a supplier who can provide reliable service for you and for your customers, who won’t disappear without a trace and who complies with the terms of delivery they show on their website. As you contact the company before selling their items you can make sure their support gets back to you in a short time, and they are helpful. Ask them which email address and/or phone number you should use in the future to contact them when you have questions or issues. When choosing a dropshipping supplier it is also important to check their warranty information.
10. High-quality Products
What else if not the quality of the products gives the greatest value to an online store for long-term success? Customers will choose to buy from you over and over only if you sell products that they really need, that they are interested in, that have reasonable prices, and products that don’t have cheap quality. After picking a supplier it is also a good idea to ask for product samples first.
11. Know Who it Worth Cooperating With
Last but not least, let’s talk about what size of the company it’s best to cooperate with. On the one hand, it depends on the market size of your business, if you are a newbie to ecommerce or you have years of experience in it. Moreover, if you are just looking for your first products to sell, or you already have a great product selection in your store.
Choose a supplier who is approachable to you. If you are a beginner and don’t have a well-functioning online store, don’t go for the top luxury products, as this will make it even harder for you to get started. There must be mutual trust between supplier and reseller. Of course, nothing is impossible, but try to stay rational in your decision-making.
How to Work with a Dropshipping Supplier Partner?
Before uploading the supplier’s products into your online store it is important to talk with them to avoid misunderstandings in the future.
- If you have only one dropshipping supplier partner, they can send the products directly to the customer easily.
- If you have more products in your store from different suppliers, it can be a good solution to ask for the products to arrive at your place first so all items that belong to one order can be in one package when the customer receives it.
- Do not forget, you can add only one kind of shipping setting, conditions, fees to your store admin. If you work with more suppliers you need to merge the different companies’ different shipping conditions.
How to Contact a Supplier?
Have you already chosen a dropshipping supplier partner? Did you find them on Syncee Marketplace? If you have some questions, you have many options to contact them. You do not have to contact Syncee support to be able to have information about the supplier you chose. Contact Syncee if you have technical questions about how the app works, and contact the supplier if you have questions about products, shipping, or their company. If the supplier didn’t give you feedback in 1-2 days feel free to contact them again and in different ways. It can happen that accidentally they didn’t see your message.
- Phone call
- Facebook Messenger
- Syncee Messenger (in-app retailer and supplier chat)
- The contact form on the supplier’s website
- Live chat on the supplier’s website
Where Can You Find Dropshipping Suppliers?
The first thing you probably do when looking for dropshipping supplier partners is to search for them on Google using relevant keywords. Use the term ‘dropshipping’, and the name of the product category that you are interested in. What kind of other options do you have? You can look for suppliers in Facebook groups as well, however, there is another solution that is more effective if you run your online store on one of the ecommerce platforms Shopify, BigCommerce, Wix, Ecwid by Lightspeed, Jumpseller, KMO Shops, or Shoprenter.
Syncee Marketplace is a B2B (Business-to-Business) platform that connects retailers and suppliers. The application helps you in the automated product data uploading and updating, and order synchronization processes. On this marketplace, retailers can browse among millions of products from hundreds of reliable suppliers from all over the world. You can pick and manage products one-by-one and bulk as well.
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