As a business owner, it can be hard to find new suppliers, but here are some tips that can help.
When you set up your business and start using the drop shipping method, it is important to do it well. There are different kinds of drop shipping, but if you want to run a successful business for a long time with little money, you should work with real wholesalers and sell their products to your customers as a retail business.
Finding the best suppliers for your business can be hard. Here, though, you can find out how to get in touch with any/new suppliers.
Overview
Before you look for new suppliers for your business, whether you’re just starting out or have been in business for a while, it’s important to know who your target customers are and what products are most likely to meet their needs.
Your customer is a big part of why you do well. This can be helpful if you want to see what they buy from your competitor or if they want to tell you what products they are looking for. There is a different way to find this information, which we will be happy to explain in another blog post called “How to Know What Products to Sell.”
Suppliers and vendors, which are used interchangeably here, can do a lot more than just give you the goods and services you need to run your business. They can also be important sources of information that help you figure out how good new products are, keep track of what your competitors are doing, and find good opportunities.
Vendors can become partners who help you save money, make your products better, and even pay for new marketing efforts. If choosing good suppliers and vendors isn’t part of your plan for growth, you will regret it in the long run.
It might seem hard to get in touch with a new supplier, but if you use the right method, it’s very simple. In this blog post, we’ll tell you about some ways to get in touch with new suppliers.
Getting to know your supplier
Suppliers can be broken down into two categories as seen below:
Manufacturers:
Some suppliers work with sales reps who sell products from more than one company. This makes it easier for retailers to buy from these reps. Most of the time, prices are lower from these sources, unless the location of the retailer makes shipping freight expensive.
Distributors: Distributors, who are also called wholesalers, buy in bulk from multiple manufacturers and store the goods until they can be sold to retailers. Distributors’ prices may be higher than those of the manufacturers, but they can fill small orders from many different manufacturers for retailers.
How do you pick a good supplier?
In the drop shipping business of today, where the supplier is a big part of the sales process, it is important to work with the best or most well-known suppliers.
Here are a few examples of things that make a good supplier:
1. Organization and getting things done
Top players know that good suppliers need to be well-organized and quick at what they do. To find out how organized a supplier is, it’s important to run some test orders to see how the supplier works. For example, how to handle orders and how fast items are sent out. Also, how quickly they send a tracking number and invoice, how well the item is packed when it arrives, etc.
2. Investing in technology
When a supplier puts a lot of money into technology and knows how important it is, it’s a good idea to work with them. Customizable data feeds, well-built websites, and other tools can make it easier for merchants to streamline their operations.
3. Representatives who are always there to help
If your supplier is good, they should give you a sales rep who is in charge of your regular tasks. If this system isn’t in place, it may take longer to fix a problem, which takes up more time. It’s important to have a single point of contact at a supplier who is in charge of solving your problem.
4. Skilled staff and a focus on the industry
Good/top suppliers have a sales team made up of people who know both the industry and the products they sell. If you’re opening a store in a niche you don’t know much about, it’s important that your supplier has representatives who can give you good advice.
5. Located in the middle
Having a supplier in the middle of the country means that if your business is on the other side of the country from the supplier and your order has been placed and is ready to be delivered, it may take more than a week to get your order. If the supplier is in the middle, your orders can be delivered in two to three days.
7. Ability to take orders over e-mail or online systems
Even though this may seem like a small thing, think about how hard it would be to call in for every order and place it on the supplier’s website by hand. In this case, it’s helpful to have a supplier who can easily take orders through e-mail or online systems.
8. Stability
You should work with vendors who have been in business for a long time and haven’t changed companies every few years. Another good sign is that the top people in the company have been there for a long time. A stable company is likely to have a good reputation among its customers. When it comes to your own experience, look for signs that a vendor is having trouble, like shipments that arrive before you asked for them. This could be a sign that the vendor is short on orders and needs to get paid faster.
How to Look for New Providers
You can find new suppliers in a number of different ways. There may be a lot of other ways to get in touch with suppliers. Still, some of them may come in handy, while others don’t work. Some of our favorite suggestions are the ones listed below:
Get in touch with the maker or distributors
If you know what kind of products you want to sell, it is best to contact the maker or distributor and ask for a list of wholesale distributors. You can contact the wholesalers on this list and ask if they do things like drop shipping and setting up accounts. This strategy helps you learn more about which wholesalers are the best or most popular in your niche market.
Order from a rival company
This is a very old way of doing things, and here’s how it works. If you want to know which wholesaler your competitor is working with, all you have to do is place a small order. When you get the package, look up the return address on Google to find out who sent it to you. In some cases, you can get in touch with a supplier. You can give it a few tries and see if it works or not. Then don’t depend too much on it. Well, blind shipping means that sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t.
Visit a trade show or exhibition
Trade shows allow you to connect with major manufacturers and wholesalers in your niche. This method only works if you’ve already selected your niche and product. Why this method is great is because you can get contacts and research your products and suppliers all in one spot.
Directories
Directories are a great way to find the contact information of wholesalers because the contacts are screened in some way to make sure they are real wholesalers. Many of these directories may have fees that you have to pay to use. It’s a good way to come up with ideas for products to sell or niches to get into, so it’s money well spent.
Since there are a lot of supplier directories online, we’re going to talk about some of the best-known ones here. These are just options; we don’t recommend any of them:
Forums
Even though it’s an old method, it still works. You can find a lot of drop-shipping-related forums on the internet. You can learn about suppliers at places like these, either from what other users say about them or from what the suppliers themselves post.
Online tools for finding products
You can help your business by using tools. You don’t have to look for suppliers if you use this method. You start to work mostly with retail marketplaces (like eBay or AliExpress) that give you a ready-to-go pack for the suppliers, who are only retailers. It can work for a while, but there are problems with it. This is the first model sold in stores. This is a risky way to stay in touch with suppliers, so you might not be successful in the long run if you do it. Some of these online tools for finding products to sell are Oberlo and Dropified. With Oberlo and Dropified, you can easily add products from your suppliers to your Shopify store, and they will ship directly to your customers.
Google Search
Google has been a great tool for many people because you can find almost any kind of information there. Even though this is a good way to find suppliers, there are a few things to remember:
You have to do a lot of searching. Since many wholesalers are bad at marketing and advertising, they probably won’t show up at the top of your search results, depending on what you’re looking for.
This means that you have to look through a lot of search results and dig deeper.
Don’t judge a business by its website. It’s interesting that some of the best suppliers have websites that aren’t very well made, while some of the worst suppliers have websites that are very well made. This means that if you come across a website with bad design, you shouldn’t be scared away by it.
Make extensive use of change words: Depending on the type of search, you might miss important information that could lead you to a good wholesaler or supplier. For example, don’t just search for “product wholesaler.” Adding words like “distributors, resellers, bulk, warehouse, and even supplier” to your search may help you find some good leads.
When you find a good product and a good supplier, you don’t always find what you’re looking for. You don’t know if the supplier or wholesaler has a database it can send you because they don’t put basic information on their websites. You have to look for words like “drop shipping,” “wholesale,” “shipping,” or “feeds” on their websites.
Contact suppliers
What if they don’t have the information and files? That would be the only way to get in touch with them. You can just give them a call and tell them you want to work with them. You like what they sell. Find out if they have the information you need. If they don’t know anything about drop shipping yet, you can tell them about it. You can also use the sample email below to get in touch with them.
“Dear Supplier,
As you know, we’re about to open a Shopify store, and we’d like to sell your products. We’d like to match up our inventory with yours, so please send us your product data feed. Here are some of the ways we can get your information and use it:
If your online store’s admin area has a product export option, please send us your product export in XLS, CSV, or XML format.
You may have already sent your products to Google Shopping, Amazon, and other affiliate channels. If so, please send us the URL where we can find your feed. We can also accept XML, CSV, and XLS.
Thanks,
Name”