Guide to Successful Dropshipping

Peter C.

When you open a retail store, you have 2 choices: to hold inventory, or not. You can buy products in bulk, unpack them, and ship them to your customers as you receive orders. OR, you can find a wholesale distributor who will warehouse the item for you and ship individual items directly to your customer.

Drop ship, "pack and ship", "direct fulfillment" - they all mean the same thing. A distributor who drop ships will provide the reseller (you) with a wholesale price for a set of products that you can then mark up and sell to a customer. They will ship the item to your customer for you, and you never have to handle the product.

Inventory is an expensive burden to carry. Drop shipping allows the reseller to focus on marketing the business and eliminates the hassle, time, and cost of dealing with the actual products they are selling.

Be careful! Many websites will tell you they have directories, all in one solutions, and that they themselves are drop shippers. It is very important that you take the time to research and explore the various distributors and wholesalers to find products you want to sell and prices that give you the ability to make a profit.

All of the suppliers that are integrated in wholesale2b.com are VERY well established suppliers who have been doing wholesale and drop ship business for years, even decades. We only integrate and recommend suppliers that have a large selection of products, have established processes and policies, and that are 100% reliable and responsive to the resellers of their products.

The first step is to choose which supplier you want to work with. Typically this decision is driven by the types of products they provide. You can browse the products from all the supplier from your wholesale2b.com website. You can browse products per supplier.

When you find a supplier that offers products you like, then the first thing you need to do is submit a reseller application to your chosen supplier(s). We provide you with direct access to all reseller applications for each of the suppliers in our network. Most wholesale suppliers will provide their applications directly on their website as well.

To apply as a reseller, you must have a reseller tax ID and a business bank account. Both are easy and very cheap to obtain, and are the first steps of starting any business. Legitimate wholesale suppliers will only work with legal business entities, so be sure to take the steps to obtain your local business license and reseller tax ID.

After submitting your application, the process could take anywhere from a few days to a couple of weeks. Large suppliers will assign you a sales rep, and that will be your contact for future questions, sales, returns, and any other business you have with the supplier. Smaller distributors will only have one or two reps for everyone, but the process is essentially the same.

If you are have chosen the wholesale2b auction plan then all you need is a valid ebay account to get started. Simply browse the products and add the products you want to sell to the auction list by clicking on the "Sell on ebay" link located in the product detail page. Follow the steps from the auction list page to create and push items to your ebay account.

Plan With this plan you can load the products into your ecommerce outlets. You should have a general plan of how and where you will be selling these products. Wholesale2b provides you with product information in various download formats for you to use on your website, ebay account, mall stores, or wherever you are selling your products.

If you are using the wholesale2b website package you don't have to worry about loading products because we will do it for you. We will apply daily updates to your website and you can add/remove any of our integrated suppliers through the website configuration steps.

If you prefer to use your own existing website with Shopify, BigCommerce or ECWID then you can get our Dropship APP directly from their App Store and import thousands of drop ship products straight to your store without any manual import. Just pick your products and click 1 button to import list list of thousands of products to your store in just minutes.

Amazon is a retail giant when it comes to online selling so it would make sense for you to leverage from Amazon success to increase your business sales. With our Amazon plan you can import thousands of products to your Amazon Professional Account in just minutes and gain immediate expoure to the millions of people that visit Amazon every day.

If you already have a store with one of the platforms mentioned above, then adding products to your store is as simple as installing our App in your store. With our dropship Apps you can build your list of preferred items straight from your Wholesale2b account and import it to your store instantly.

You can import products by single items, or in bulk by choosing an entire categry or an entire supplier of your choice. The process is extremely easy and very user friendly.

Once you have your website or eStore up and running and filled with products from your chosen suppliers, it is time for business. When a customer buys a product from you, you will accept payment for the product for your retail price and shipping costs. The easiest way to accept payments is through PayPal but your wholesale2b website can also support many other payment gateways such as authorize.net, 2checkout, etc.

If you are selling on eBay then you will collect the payment directly from your eBay buyer after the auction is complete.

Once you have received the funds, you place the order directly in your account at the distributor. This is typically either an email or an online order at the distributor's website. You can see detailed information and instructions for each supplier in your wholesale2b account by clicking on the supplier menu link located on top.

The distributor will then charge you for the cost of the item and ship the item directly to your buyer, and in most cases include your business name on the invoice, helping to build customer loyalty for your new store.

That's it! You have just sold an item at retail and processed the order for your customer. From here, it's up to you to plan and run your business.

There is no magic formula and you cannot sit back and watch the money roll in. A successful online entrepreneur is always developing a marketing strategy, maintaining a customer base, developing partnership relations, and constantly looking to expand. With some organization and the right tools, you can build a successful business from the ground up.

Suppliers are usually willing to lower their wholesale prices so remember to always ask them for special deals.

The wholesale prices that we include in this website do not reflect any special discounts. Very often you can negotiate lower prices with the suppliers so your final wholesale cost may often result in lower prices.

Some suppliers will email you special deals weekly and others will give you deals upon requests. Don't be afraid to ask them for lower prices.