Are you opening a new online store and looking for things to sell? Or are you looking for ways to add to the things you sell in your store? Getting a dropshipping supplier as a business partner would be a great idea. Why would you want to work with them? What should you think about when choosing a new partner? Read on to find out more!
First, let’s quickly go over what dropshipping is. It is a way for online stores to do business. So that a store can sell products without having to spend money on stocking them. Usually, the dropshipping supplier partner of the retailer will send the product straight to the customer who just placed an order. The retailer doesn’t have to worry about logistics or pay for a warehouse. They will have a “virtual stock” of products and will fill their online store with information about products from their dropshipping supplier partner.
The customer gives money to the store, and the store gives money to the supplier. The difference between the wholesale/dropshipping price and the retail price in the store is what the online store owner will make.
Even if the store works with dropshipping supplier partners, it is not possible to open and run an online store for free and without making any investments. With dropshipping, they will have to spend less money on the business than if they bought a lot of products at the start. Even though the retailer can save money on logistics and stock, there will be other costs, such as monthly subscriptions to the ecommerce platform they use, application fees, operating costs, marketing costs, and many more.
What Should You Look for in a Dropshipping Supplier Partner?
When choosing a dropshipping supplier partner for your business, there are a lot of things you need to think about to find the best company to get products from. It’s important to look for all the important details and not start a business before you have them. Let’s look at what you need to think about when choosing a dropshipping supplier to work with.
Choose a real provider
Choose a dropshipping supplier partner who is a real supplier with their own products. Find out more about the company on the internet, on their website, and everywhere else. You can also talk to them. Make sure that they are not just a store that is the fifth person to sell that product and raise the price by the fifth markup.
Keep a warehouse near you so you can get things quickly
When looking for a dropshipping partner, it’s important to choose a company that has a warehouse close to you and, more importantly, close to where your customers live. This way, you can get goods to your customers quickly. They want to get the products they ordered “right now,” so if you choose a supplier with shipping times of two to three weeks, it’s unlikely that your business will be successful in the long run. Don’t forget to check that the shipping terms of the supplier meet your needs.
Only deal with a few or just one supplier
Why do we say this if everything is so easy with dropshipping and you can get products from many suppliers anywhere in the world? You can choose to run a store using the dropshipping model if (a) your online store is new and you don’t have any products yet, (b) you have your own products in your own warehouse and you want to sell more kinds of products, or (c) you already work with other suppliers and you want to sell more kinds of products to your customers.
If there are more ways for customers to get products, it’s easy for a customer to order three items that come from three different places. For example, you could ship from your own warehouse and the warehouses of two different dropshipping supplier partners. There will be three different shipping times, fees, and terms, and you will have to combine them into one. On your site, you can only set and show one kind of delivery condition.
What’s wrong with the example that was given? The customer will get three packages on three different days. When the first package arrives, he will send you a message saying that two other packages are missing. There is a way to deal with this. But if you want all of the products to go straight from the supplier to the customer, you have to make sure that they can all be shipped from the same warehouse. The best way to deal with this is to only work with one dropshipping supplier.
Ask for the goods to be sent to your home.
Don’t be afraid. You can still enjoy dropshipping’s magic. If you want to work with more than one dropshipping supplier partner, you will have to make concessions for your customers. You probably don’t want a customer to get more than one package on more than one day in different ways, even if all of the packages are for the same order. So what are your options? One solution is to work with only one dropshipping supplier partner, or to work with more than one but ask for the products to come to your place first.
You don’t need to have a warehouse or store a lot of products. The dropshipping supplier partner will only send your customer the products that they just ordered. You can store those few things in your living room or garage. You can let the things wait for each other or put them all in the same box. You can also add a small present and a greeting card to it. Choose local suppliers who can ship quickly, so that even if you send the items to the customer from your own location, the delivery time will still be short.
There should be a need for your products on the market
When choosing a dropshipping supplier partner, you need to make sure that the products you want to sell are wanted, needed, or could be of interest. Offer products that you are interested in, like ones that are related to a hobby you have. Also, don’t forget that it will be hard to sell things on the market if no one wants them. Also, you must have products that are of high quality. You can order samples of products to check them out before you start selling them, if you want to.
There are technical solutions for everything
When you’re ready to open an online store, you have to decide if you want to build a whole new system and site with your developers or if you want to use an e-commerce platform to build your store. In both cases, you need to make sure that you can easily add the supplier’s product information to your online store and that you can get daily automated updates to pricing, inventory quantities, and order data.
Most likely, you will need to use an ecommerce application or piece of software to do this. If you run your online store on Shopify, BigCommerce, Wix, Ecwid by Lightspeed, KMO Shops, or Shoprenter, for example, you can use the app dropship-empire to find products, suppliers, and automate the most important parts of product management.
Talk to the provider
Before you start working with a dropshipping supplier partner, you should talk to them before selling their products, even if it’s easy to add their products to your online store with a few clicks using the right software. Send the company a message or give them a call if you have any questions about the products, shipping, guarantee, or anything else. This will help you avoid trouble in the future.
Make products in the language of your audience
When looking for a dropshipping partner, you need to make sure that the product information is available in the language of your target audience. You can find many suppliers whose products could be good for your business and whose shipping conditions are also good. However, the products might not be available in the language that your customers speak.
In this case, you can ask the supplier if they have product data in other languages, translate the titles, descriptions, and other details yourself, or hire someone to do it. If neither of these works for you, you’ll need to find a different dropshipping supplier partner. Here, you can also see how important it is to work with a local supplier.
Dependable service and great customer service
It’s also important to work with a supplier who can provide reliable service for you and your customers, won’t disappear without a trace, and sticks to the terms of delivery they list on their website. As long as you contact the company before selling their products, you can be sure that their support will get back to you quickly and help you. Ask them what email address or phone number you should use to get in touch with them in the future when you have questions or problems. When choosing a dropshipping supplier, it’s also important to look at their warranty information.
Products of high quality
What else, besides the quality of the products, is most important for an online store’s long-term success if not the quality of the products? Customers will only buy from you again and again if you sell things they really need, things they are interested in, things that are priced fairly, and things that aren’t made cheaply. After you choose a supplier, it’s also a good idea to ask for samples of their products.
Know who you should work with.
Last but not least, let’s talk about how big a company you should work with. On the one hand, it depends on the size of your business’s market and whether you are new to ecommerce or have been doing it for years. Also, if you are looking for your first products to sell or if you already have a great selection of products in your store, you can use this method.
Pick a supplier who is easy to get in touch with. If you’re just starting out and don’t have a good online store, don’t sell high-end products. This will only make it harder for you to get going. Both the supplier and the reseller must trust each other. Nothing is really impossible, but try to make decisions that make sense.
How to Work with a Supplier Partner for Dropshipping?
Before adding a supplier’s products to your online store, you should talk to them to make sure there are no misunderstandings.
- If you only work with one dropshipping partner, they can easily send the goods straight to the customer.
- If you have more products from different suppliers in your store, it might be a good idea to ask for them to come to you first so that all the items from one order can be sent to the customer in one package.
How to Get in Touch with a Vendor?
Have you already chosen a supplier partner for dropshipping? They were on dropship-empire Marketplace, right? There are many ways to get in touch with them if you have questions. You don’t have to talk to dropship-empire support to find out about the provider you chose. If you have technical questions about how the app works, you can contact dropship-empire. If you have questions about the products, shipping, or the supplier’s business, you can contact the supplier. If you haven’t heard back from the supplier after 1–2 days, you can try to get in touch with them again in different ways. It’s possible that they missed your message by accident.
- Call or email
- Facebook Messenger Dropship-Empire Messenger (in-app retailer and supplier chat)
- The form on the supplier’s website for getting in touch
Live chat on the website of the providerc
Where can you find suppliers who do drop shipping?
When looking for dropshipping supplier partners, you probably start by searching for them on Google using relevant keywords. Use the word “dropshipping” and the name of the type of product you want to buy. What choices do you have besides this? You can also look for suppliers in Facebook groups. However, if you run your online store on Shopify, BigCommerce, Wix, Ecwid by Lightspeed, Jumpseller, KMO Shops, or Shoprenter, there is a better way to find suppliers.