Drop Shipping: finding the right supplier

Drop shipping is a popular supply chain technique used by online retailers. It uses wholesalers which are able to ship any products that you sell on your site directly to your customers, eliminating the need for you to hold any stock and takes away the risk of having an inventory that doesn’t sell.

We have written about the pros and cons of this strategy before. There are some considerations to be made before you decide you want to go down the drop shipping route. But once you have decided you’d like to, you need to go about finding the suppliers to partner with. This is an incredibly important task.

You must find a wholesaler which sells what you want to sell – but this isn’t the only challenge. You must find a wholesaler that you want to work with and that you trust. You are essentially going into business with these people. They are responsible for getting the product to your customers quickly and in perfect condition however if they make a mistake, your brand will be tarnished not theirs.

So how do you go about finding a drop shipping supplier?

There are a number of ways you can find wholesalers who drop ship. The first method is to call the manufacturers of the products you want to sell. These people will have full lists of their wholesalers and will probably be able to tell you which ones drop ship. If not, you can get the list and given them a call directly.

Another way of finding them is by doing a good old search on Google. Unfortunately, this won’t be as easy as you might think. Wholesalers aren’t great at marketing themselves and generally don’t pay much attention to SEO for you will have to go through lots of pages before you find what you are looking for. Make sure you use lots of different search terms such as ‘distributor’, ‘reseller’ or ‘supplier’.

You can also use a directory to browse through lists of wholesalers. You can find plenty of these online by searching for wholesale directories and they are very thorough. The only catch is that often they charge for a membership or a one-off fee for using the directory. If you’re short on research time and have the money to invest this could be a good option.

Other methods you can use include ringing your local trade body and asking them. You could also go along to one of the many trade shows which take place each year. Or you could also go to an online forum and ask around – chances are people have looked for something similar to you.

Finding the right supplier

Once you have got a good list of suppliers in front of you it is time to decide which one you want to give your business to. Before you go to the effort of contacting them make sure you have registered as a business as they will probably want evidence of this before engaging with you and giving quotes.

Don’t be too put off by poor websites. A nice-looking website could be an indication of a good supplier but many have pretty basic sites so don’t judge them too harshly.

Sometimes, retailers can pose as wholesalers to try and get your business. You don’t want to go down that route because they will charge you over the odds for the service. Make sure that the ‘wholesaler’ you are talking to don’t sell to the public as well. Also be wary of those who ask you for a monthly fee – this isn’t standard.

You will be charged a fee for each product they ship so hunt around and see what the going rate is before making a decision.

It’s a good idea to speak with the wholesaler’s sales team before going with them. If you have a decent chat with them you should be able to ascertain what their service will be like and their depth of knowledge. You could even go as far as placing some test orders to see how quickly they arrive and how they are presented. Your brand name is on the line after all.