Where to Find Products to Sell
If you’re going to be an online retailer you need a steady, continuous source of products to sell. Starting out you might sell those extra items laying around your house, or trying going to garage and yard sales to find items to sell. But it doesn’t take very long before it starts getting harder and harder to find items to sell. You spend a lot of time getting the item ready to sell, preparing your eBay auction or posting the item on your web store. After the item sells have to pull the listing from your web store because you don’t have any more of that item and no inexpensive, reliable source to get more.
Selling these locally sourced items is a good way to get your feet wet with online retailing. However, no single type of product sourcing should be depended upon if a retailer wants to be successful. A good business strategy is to use multiple sourcing method to provide products for you business. Listed below are some common prduct sources.
Local Sourcing – Local sourcing is finding products that are laying around your house and checking out the local yard and garage sales. You could also talk to local merchants, offering to buy items that are sitting around in the back room that the store has not sold. You could check out thrift stores and factory retailers looking for steeply discounted items. You can often find a supply of unique items from local artisan. Storage unit auctions can also provide items to sell. There are a lot of options for local souring, limited only by your imagination.
Drop Shipping – Drop shipping is using a wholesaler who will ship products to your customers, one product at a time, from their warehouse. The customer buys the item from your web store at retail price. You direct the wholesale drop shipper to send the item directly to your customer. You never have to touch the product, figure out postage, or worry about boxes of products stored in your garage. Drop shipping works well when your first starting out, try to expand, or checking out test markets. Many drop shippers will handle returns for you making your job a little easier. Working with a wholesale drop ship does cost a little extra. The drop shipper might charge a slightly higher wholesale price for each item sold and there is often a drop ship fee, or handling charge, for each box shipped to your customers.
Light Bulk Wholesale – Wholesalers make very little money off each product they sell so they usually have fairly large minimum order requirements, from $5,000 up to $25,000. A light bulk wholesaler is a wholesaler who allow purchases with a smaller minimum order requirement, often $500 or less. The wholesaler ships the items to your business where you store them until yours customers buy them from you. You then need to package and ship the items to your customer. You also need to handle returns from the customer. The wholesaler will usually allow items to be returned to them for a refund or replacement. But your customers will need to return the item to you, and you return it to the wholesaler. Light bulk wholesale item prices will usually be lower than drop ship item price.
General Wholesale – General wholesale is the same as light bulk wholesale except you have those high minimum order requirements. You usually get the best wholesale prices when buying products through general wholesale. It’s also important to understand that general wholesalers usually will not work with small internet businesses. Small internet businesses typically don’t have high enough sales to be worth the general wholesalers time. This does not mean some wholesalers aren’t will to work with small businesses, as long as the minimum order requirements are met.
Liquidation/Overstock Sourcing – Wholesalers and manufacturers are sometimes left with items still on the warehouse shelves from last season. The manufacturer may have made too many units or the wholesaler might have purchased too much. Whatever the cause, these items are often be purchased at a steep discount. But remember, these items did not sell last season for some reason. You need to take that into account. Also, there is usually only a limited supply of these items available. Once they are gone you won’t be able to get any more.
Importing – Importing is acquiring products to sell from another country. Bringing products into your country can be expensive. Make sure you understand all of the related costs before importing products. Finding importers who have already brought the products into the country can save you a lot of time and money.
Manufacturer Direct – Manufacturers typically will not work directly with retailers, but a few will. Some manufacturers are willing to drop ship for you. But usually they will only handle light bulk or general wholesale orders.
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