If you own a retail business, you probably want it to do well over time. Here, you can find out more about how suppliers work with each other.
When you set up your retail business and start to use the Dropshipping method, you have to decide on a lot of different things. Running a Dropshipping business in the best and most profitable way is important.
Once you know what you want to sell in your online store, you can move on to the next steps. Find the people who make the products you want to sell. You can find millions of products from reliable suppliers from all over the world in Marketplace, which is a great directory.
If you do everything right, you can have a successful retail business for a long time with a small amount of money. And that’s exactly what you want, right? Here are some facts about both long-term and short-term relationships with suppliers. You can pick the one that works best for you.
About the Relationships with Suppliers in General
We can talk about how long a relationship with a supplier should last. Some say it’s fine in the short term. Because, for example, you can update your store every so often or follow the latest fashions. Others say that a long-term relationship is best, because you can feel safe working with suppliers you’ve worked with before. You might need to find a good mix of short-term and long-term partnerships.
What you sell is the most important thing. If it’s a popular item, if there aren’t enough of it on the market, if it’s unique, if it’s something you use every day, or if it’s an important item. When you start your business and start the whole process, you need to have a plan and some tactics. Don’t forget that the supplier is one of the most important people in the sales process.
How do you pick a good supplier? These include being organized, efficient, investing in technology, having experts on staff, focusing on your industry, being in a central location, being able to take orders over e-mail or online systems, and being stable. One of our other articles has more information about these.
You can get in touch with two types of suppliers.
marketplaces, and from there, other online stores, real B2B suppliers
In what follows, we’ll talk about short-term supplier relationships as contact with marketplaces (and their small virtual retailers) and long-term supplier relationships as contact with real B2B suppliers.
Short-term relationship with a supplier
You can build a short-term relationship with a retail marketplace if you want to, but it has its own problems. In this case, you do this for more than one reason. One reason could be that you’re always looking for new products and won’t settle for just one customer.
Another reason could be that what you got didn’t meet your needs. And another can be for one of the methods for dropshipping. You want to work with retail marketplaces as a store (as suppliers). So, as you can see, this is how you can bring in goods from other online shops that are part of large retail marketplaces. Some examples of these are AliExpress, eBay, and Amazon.
You can choose products one by one from these retail marketplaces if you want to buy something from them. Those are the ones you’ll sell in your own online store.
Since we’re already here, let’s say that when you do dropshipping, you don’t have real stock. If you work with these retail marketplaces, the things your customers buy from your store will be sent straight to their homes. One of the best things about dropshipping is that you don’t have to put too much money into your business. You can also choose from a lot of different things.
Disadvantages of short-term supplier relationship and doing dropshipping with retail marketplaces:
long delivery time: Customers often have to wait a month or more for the product they ordered, which is not good for anyone.
more expensive: As a way to make money, the owner of the Shopify web store decides how much of a markup to add to the prices of items from suppliers or retail marketplaces. But who wants to pay more for something when they can get it for less on the original store’s website, like AliExpress?
VAT and customs duties: If a customer orders goods worth more than a certain amount, they have to look for paperwork, deal with VAT and customs duties, and pay more.
unknowable quality: Since Shopify web stores don’t have warehouses, they can’t even see and check the products they sell.
missing package: It’s not a new problem for people who buy things from other countries, and it can be inconvenient for both the web store and the customer.
problems with guarantee: Web stores have to send packages back to the other side of the world, where they can get lost again. The biggest problem is when a retailer goes out of business and there’s no place to send back products that need warranty service. Then, there’s no way to get your money back or a new product.
reliability at issue: You don’t know anything about the sellers on the market, so you can’t tell if they are trustworthy or not.
banks moving apart: Bank card companies don’t like to deal with money from traditional dropshipping businesses because they can be hard to trust.
items arrive from different places: If a customer orders something from a marketplace that comes from more than one store, they won’t get everything in one big box. Instead, they will get as many packages as orders they placed. There’s nowhere for them to wait for each other.
one in a million: If you work with retail marketplaces, you’ll probably sell the same things as everyone else. Your products won’t be unique, so it will be hard to get customers even if you do good marketing. One reason might be the one you can also read about above. The fact that no one wants to buy something for more money if they can get it elsewhere for less. Find your niche if you want to be successful.
Long-term relationship with a supplier
Contacting a real B2B company is probably the only way to build a long-term relationship with a supplier. You need to use this type of dropshipping if you want to be successful and get benefits. Long-term relationships with suppliers have many benefits, such as lower costs, a sense of security, a chance to get to know the supplier better, and less price volatility. Volatility means that prices can change and move around. These are just a few of the benefits of working with real B2B suppliers. Below, you can find out more.
What is the point of this real B2B supplier collaboration? So, as a retailer, you work with real suppliers from whom you get goods. You’ll put their products in your online store, so people will buy them. You choose your suppliers based on what you want to sell and what kind of shop you want to have. Both of you will be able to work together and do business with each other for a long time. Customers will order from you, and the information will be sent to your supplier partner. If you don’t decide otherwise, your supplier partner will send the product to the customer.
You can ask for the products to come to your place first. Once they do, you can put all the items from different suppliers that belong to the same order in one box and ship them to your customer. This is good because you can be sure of what you are selling. Also, about how good the items are and whether or not they are broken. You don’t even need to rent a warehouse because you can put the packages in the right places. For that short amount of time, in your own living room, garage, or kitchen. You can find real B2B suppliers with unique products from all over the world on Marketplace.
Benefits of having a long-term relationship with a supplier and drop-shipping with real B2B suppliers!
Responsibility: They are real, legal businesses that you can talk to and get in touch with whenever you want. They have their own website, so you can’t lose track of them.
Quality: You choose who you want to work with, you know what kinds of products it sells, and you can be sure of the quality, so nothing will surprise you.
Lower purchase and sales price: Wholesalers sell products for less than retailers do, and even if you add a margin to the price, it will still be a good deal for the customer.
Guarantee: Problems with warranties are easy to deal with because you are close to the wholesaler and talk to them often.
Fast shipping: If you buy something from a cross-border seller, you’ll get it in 3–7 days. If you order from a local supplier, you and your customers can get the goods in 1–2 days. Or the day you place your order.
You don’t have to keep your money in products: you work with virtual stock by using the constantly updating database of the supplier. So you don’t have high investment costs.
Help in marketing: If you work with a real wholesaler, this client will also help you with marketing.
Profit improvement: If you have a good relationship with your supplier, your profits will soon go up.
Improvement in general: You and your supplier can always get better at what you do together.
Unified image: With long-term supplier relationships, you can give your business a more uniform look.
Safety: If you work with someone for a long time, you can feel safe and don’t have to risk much.
Reduced costs: You can save money by running your business this way.
Being always updated: Using the right Shopify app, you can make sure that your online shop’s data is always up to date. You won’t have to deal with customers who are upset because they can’t find something.
How can you get along better with suppliers you’ve worked with for a long time?
Being reliable is the most important thing you can do to get along better with anyone. The best you can do here is also this. You need to make sure that your suppliers can trust you.
If you want to get along better with long-term suppliers, do the following:
- You must always know what’s going on.
- You need to make sure you have a way to stay in touch.
- Stay in touch with them, talk to them,
- Don’t forget that you’re not the only one,
- Be professional,
- Understand the other’s point of view, be fair
- Be reliable,
- Do not hesitate to ask,
- If you take care of your own business, other things will go well, too.
- Act well with money, pay on time,
As you’ve seen, you’re probably only going to be able to work with real B2B suppliers in the long run. On B2C marketplaces like AliExpress, you resell products from other retailers, which isn’t worth it for you. Also, you won’t know much about each other.